


Plus bleu que tes yeux

by anonlytree



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M, PS: I swear it's not in French, having too much fun with the supporting cast, not spoiling the other dramatis personae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-03 10:16:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonlytree/pseuds/anonlytree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Maybe the old Queen kept it hidden all along then threw it into the ocean at the end."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tu che le vanità conoscesti del mondo

_Amsterdam, 1558_

The service doors of the banquet hall swing open discreetly to make room for yet another liveried valet holding aloft a silver tray as ornate with trimmings as it is with oysters arranged in neat little pyramids of indigestion. The ensuing draft swivels around the silver candle holders, casting a faint aroma of melted wax over the finest aged Jerez shipped in contraband caskets through enemy waters long before the gathering’s guest of honor had ever set foot in his most reluctant realm.

He sniffs at his cup, seemingly inhaling a wisp of home. He has elegant arched eyebrows spread over light, intelligent eyes that fit the pallor of his face and sparse facial hair that barely reaches his still youthful, round cheeks.

“If I were so inclined, I’d place a wager on the English being far too concerned with losing Dunkirk to be expected to hold any ambitions regarding these shores,” a reedy voice stirs somewhere to his right.

“No better arbiter than His Majesty,” says another, striking from his left flank.

Felipe II ignores the prolonged silence stretching over his wine sip and beyond, past the limit of courteous behavior for anyone lower than a Count in the line of succession. Having had the privilege to look down on Counts since birth, he continues to contemplate the way the Jerez sloshes around the silver cup, absorbed in silence, much to the increasing discomfort of the not-even-Dukes around him.

“Even if you had but one florin to your name to wager, Affetato, a long line of creditors would be waging bloody battle for it before you ever had the chance to send it on yet another fool’s errand,” the tall, mustachioed host cuts through the stillness like a lash.

The predictable howls of laughter rippling through the little coterie formed around his guest allow the Duke of Parma the perfect opportunity to usher Felipe through a throng of guests into the secluded retreat of his study.

“With your Majesty’s permission,” says the Duke, “it is perhaps time to dispose of the polite fiction of your visit to your most humble servant.”

His voice is clear and steady, respectful but uncowering in the presence of royalty, worthy of the only real Duke in the room, Felipe thinks. He motions his guards to keep a healthy distance while he follows his host further into the venerable library. Ten minutes later, the King of Spain, Naples and Sicily is still glued to the spot where he’d paused upon approaching the Duke’s mahogany desk, half stooped and gazing transfixed at a humble wooden box.

“I’m afraid it is not for sale, Your Majesty. My wife dreams of converting it into a family heirloom passed onto our daughter, a most proud dowry…”

“Perhaps her dreams would be sweeter as mistress of her own island in the West Indies, rich in spices and slaves?”

The Duke pauses in mid-breath.

“Our daughter is to be married before next Whitsunday, Sire,” he says, conviction nowhere to be found in his voice.

“On the other hand, a Duchess can dream as a hostess of colonial palaces just as well as she can dream as a guest of the Holy Office of the Inquisition.”

Felipe blinks only once, as if loath to close his eyes even for the briefest of moments. He continues to peer through the cold, waxy light falling on the open box nestled on the Duke’s desk.

“If I were you, I’d name a good price for a Duchess’ dreams, Farnese.”

 

 

~

Álvaro takes a deep breath and starts to count back from sixty. This is if not the biggest day of his career, then certainly one of the most high-stakes, nerve-wracking ones. As counterintuitive as it may seem for an advertising exec, Álvaro hates volatility and since the less travelled path is usually paved with utter twats for clients, he prefers to keep it as predictable as possible. The last place he would have expected to find himself in this most crucial of Tuesdays when he boarded Mourinho’s Madrid-bound jet too early in the morning was a quiet, obscure wing of the Museo del Prado, watching paint dry off the distinctive lips of dead Habsburgs staring back at him from poorly lit portraits.

_…thirty-seven, thirty-six…_

Come to think of it, he’s known Xabi long enough to expect it just a little bit.

“I can _hear_ you trying to come up with a way to interrupt,” Xabi says, his profile rivaling in stillness and beardedness any royal portrait hanging on the beige walls.

“No, I get it. You’re gathering your thoughts… getting in the zone… that’s cool.” Álvaro joins his boss on the polished bench in the middle of the exhibit room. “If staring at underage chicks is what it takes, at least it’s chicks wearing eight layers of clothes, so it’s marginally less creepy.”

“Isabel de Valois was thirteen when she married the King of Spain through a proxy groom; el Duque de Alba stood in for His Majesty,” Xabi starts, never breaking eye contact with the cracked porcelain texture of the portrait’s skin.

“Uhuh.”

“The Iron Duke? Conqueror of Portugal, butcher of the Spanish Netherlands, military genius, genocidal maniac…?” Álvaro plays it cool to the point where mild outrage at his lack of interest isn’t even fun anymore, so Xabi continues his quasi monologue. “The portrait was commissioned by Felipe II…,” his voice takes a hesitant turn that awakens an innate strain of petulance in Álvaro.

“Guy with all the sunken boats sent to fuck up England – La Invencible Armada. I bet that was awkward the day after…” Xabi raises an eyebrow at him before turning his attention back to the young princess. “What?... You’re not the only one who reads books.”

“In the 1550s, Felipe bought a unique blue diamond for his future bride. It wasn’t the largest stone or the most expensive, but it was supposedly so clear and its blue hues were so… pure, it’s thought to be one of the first internally flawless diamonds ever discovered. And they don’t get discovered very often, not to that degree of purity. The jeweler who cut it describes the way it trapped light in its depths and reflected it back into the most perfect shade of blue like some sort of religious experience...”

“But we’re staring at a blurry, shitty picture of it instead of the real thing because…?”

It’s not that Álvaro’s suddenly interested, no. It’s just that the goddamn beige light of the museum offends him on a deeper, professional level. If Mourinho ever let them do pro bono, which he never would, Álvaro would love nothing more than to give the old, dusty place a makeover, complete with floodlights and a half decent souvenir shop for a change. He’s happy to let Xabi blabber away while he’s mentally working on his grand corporate citizenship project that never was.

“It was worn by both Kings and Queens for centuries, the most recognizable symbol of the Spanish Crown, until Napoleon’s brother pawned it off to finance his retreat on his way out. According to some sources, it was recut into a smaller, worthless gem mounted on a sword and then inevitably lost forever as the Empire crumbled to dust. But there are other, more… interesting theories about what happened to it.”

“Maybe the old Queen kept it hidden all along then threw it into the ocean at the end,” Álvaro suggests, noticing for the first time the rapt look in Xabi’s eyes.

It makes him feel weirdly uncomfortable. They’ve worked together almost seven years and, binge alcoholism aside (which doesn’t count since it’s a required skill in their profession), he’s never seen Xabi lose composure in front of anything or anybody. Álvaro’s mouth hangs half open ready to parry a comeback that never comes. Xabi blank stares at him for a few seconds and he figures that statistically speaking, he _would_ have that one friend who’d react like this. Of course it would be Xabi.

“I’m guessing there’s some profound life lesson here about managing the client’s expectations and the ephemeral nature of all shiny, expensive things we’re trying to sell. Thing is though, we have about an hour and a half until we have to stand in front of the board of Adidas Europe and pitch them a campaign that’s had more midwives than Isabella here has underskirts and it’s kinda looking to be dead on arrival. So if you don’t mind, boss, I’d need a little less history of bling and more of an insight into what you thought of the Adidas campaign.”

“It’s awful.”

“Well… that’s a start.”

“The whole thing is so visually and emotionally hollow, there’s no way to cover up the fact that it was created by coked up, yuppie ad execs who’d never soil their Ferragamos in the stands of a football stadium. If they ever do bother to show up in the complimentary VIP boxes at Stamford Bridge, it’s to sip expensive champagne and gossip about their dream tech start-ups rather than watch the game.”

 _You can stop now_ , Álvaro wants to say, but he has this sinking feeling that Xabi’s just warming up and the fact that he’s finally looking away from the portrait and springing to his feet seems to confirm it.

“The whole _Your heart is beating on the pitch like that of our brave warriors_ , Michael Bay vomit-cam quick shot-aesthetic is so vapid, it would be insulting to pretend otherwise. It just screams: ‘We’re rich and we’re _loving_ it.’” Xabi shoves his hands in his perfectly tailored pockets and turns to look at the melancholic princess one last time. “And the message is absolutely pitch perfect for the product. People don’t support Real Madrid because they love hanging onto the edge of their seat to see the scrappy underdog battle a whole division of of other broke, inferior teams in half empty stadiums where they can barely afford to keep the lights on. They’re in it to win shit. People come into the Bernabéu like the Romans went into the Colosseum – nobody was there for the Christians. The Christians were boring. They’re there to cheer for the lions. The ad tells them: We spend ridiculous amounts of money on bringing you the best players in the world and _win_. Why apologize for it? You’re loving it!”

“So we’re going with Greed Is Good? That’s a little 1987…”

“No, _you_ ’re going with WINNING Is Good. You’re leading the pitch.”

“Um… no, I’m not.” Álvaro sounds terribly unconvinced though because Xabi’s already on his way out of the exhibit room.

“Time to spread your wings, Alvarito. You know more about the campaign and Adidas than I do, they already like you and I wouldn’t trust anybody else with the job. If you want to go in the opposite direction, the client will follow you anyway,” he says, stopping in the doorway for a moment.

And yes, Álvaro’s seen straight men in board rooms get uncomfortable boners and feel the need to throw piles of money at Xabier Alonso for the privilege of buying whatever he was selling following performances not unlike what he’s just witnessed, but there’s rare, genuine human warmth in it this time so he smiles back.

“Go lions!”

He sighs and looks up at the portrait in earnest before rushing to follow Xabi out. The light still bothers him.

“Did you just hitch a private jet ride to come to a museum and get paid for the day?” Álvaro asks, equally scared and excited at the sight of the separate taxis waiting around the corner from El Prado.

“I’ll see you in London,” Xabi says, patting him cheerfully on the back before telling his driver to head straight to the airport.

Xabi lands on the Côte d'Azur under a brilliant spring sun and chides himself for not packing any boating shoes.

He’s driven to the marina by a very bald, very surly man and escorted into the blinding white cavern of luxury parked among lesser yachts by an equally reserved gentleman whose Glock 17 rests purposefully on his hip. It's concealed under his utilitarian gun-for-hire expensive suit jacket, but still visible if you know where to look, and Xabi most certainly does.

 

 

~

Steven arches his back against the tense graphite of his six iron and glares at the expanse of green separating him from his target. The gray April sky hangs so low over London, it seems intent on swallowing the city, and even if it stopped raining hours ago, humidity still clings to the afternoon air. He loves playing after a good rain - drives may not run as far, but the green's like a dartboard and he can ram home putts that he wouldn't dream of being aggressive with on a hard green. Also, it tends to be quieter, especially right before rush hour on the out-of-the-way suburban golf course where Steven comes to escape (he's not sure exactly from what or where) and wear mismatched argyle sweaters and socks.

He used to play with the one friend from college who still speaks to him, a stocky lad who'd taught Steven how to golf by kicking beer cans to release frustrations inherent to being a "probie" constable stuck with some of the most shit tasks in the force. The birth of baby no. 3 put their golf afternoons on indeterminate hold in the way that their divergent career paths never could, so Steven golfs alone. He still drives out here far from his new office because he can, what with all the time he discovered he now has on his hands, and because Steven's rich now. Not just comfortably well off, not successful professional wealthy, but fucking loaded and probably not having to bother with showing up at Gerrard Investigations except to sign papers for the rest of his life. And the car's nice (nicer), and his mum loves her new house with a big garden, but otherwise he still refuses to throw away his old, battered running shoes and nothing much's changed in Steven's life over the last couple of years. But that bit about being a name on a wall in a well oiled machine that runs just fine without him nags at him like a pebble stuck in his boot.

The hosel is released from his fingers with a snap and Steven prepares to tee up for the fourth hole when the tip of a gleaming stingray golf shoe distracts him.

"Glen...," he says, smiling despite himself at how much the bald, brawny man swathed in tasteful cashmere who's walking towards him still looks like a refugee from an Armani catalog. 

"Mr. Gerrard, you're a hard man to find at this hour," says Glen Johnson, the grip on Steven's hand every bit as forceful as three years ago when they'd last met.

"I guess it's too much to hope you're here for an afternoon putt?"

"I'm more of a ping-pong man myself. Afraid it's strictly business again. If you're interested," Glen adds with a quirk of his lips.

"Did the old man lose something again?"

"Not yet. But he thinks someone might want to make sure that he does and there's nobody he trusts with these kind of... operations better than you. He'd like to debrief you right now, if you're available."

Steven leans against the club and stares into the distance where he can barely make out the glass spires of the City through the fog.

"I think I can make some room in my planner," he smiles wryly. "Want me to follow you in my car or..."

"No need," Glen nods towards the small beech coppice lining the golf course. "The helicopter's waiting for us right there."

 

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gold on the ceiling  
> I ain't blind  
> It's just a matter of time  
> Before you steal it

**Thursday**

“Look what the cat dragged in!”

Steven climbs onto the wobbly pub stool and scans the premises with a weary eye. The man to his right smirks into his cheap but reliable whiskey. He smells of cologne, cigarettes and the smoky oak of a thousand pubs like this one.

“Detective Inspector Terry,” Steven turns towards him once he’s reassured that nobody’s paying him any mind among the patrons. “I’d have offered my congratulations earlier but I didn’t think it was a good idea to be seen in public with me at the time.”

“Still not a good idea if Cole walks in. Everyone else probably figures you’re too posh to hang out in a copper’s dive these days.”

“Same for him, a Guinness for me,” Steven nods to the bartender’s skeptical eyebrow lifted in his direction.

“Me, I’m man enough to sponge a free drink off a toff bastard,” says Detective Inspector John Terry, but whether it’s the drink (obviously far from his first) or the general merriment of the loud locale, if there was ever any venom in his words, it fails to ignite.

“No such thing as a free drink, JT.”

“I know it’s not my buns of steel you’re after or else you’d made a move years ago, so spit it out, Gerrard.”

“I have something for you, actually.” Steven curls his fingers around his pint. “Word on the street’s there’s been some concern in your Flying Squad about a series of unsolved jewelry robberies over the last eighteen months.”

John’s eyes narrow in a reptilian squint and Steven knows there’s not enough alcohol in the world to dull the part of his brain that separates every police officer - or at least the good ones -from a civilian alcoholic.

“I’ve been informed by a reliable source that some of those hits are more connected than it would appear at first glance,” Steven continues after his first sip of diluted Guinness in months. “May also include some missing diamonds in Monte Carlo.”

“So call the Interpol.”

“I probably should, but I guess I’m a sentimental fool me. Heard you were with SCO now, so… There’s going to be a big rock sale in London soon. If you have any foreign, most likely Spanish magpies on your radar, this would be a good time to keep a close eye on them.”

“Gerrard, you don’t need me to tell you it’s your civic duty to inform the authorities about any potential criminal activities, but it’s not a two-way street.”

“That’s what I’m doing. I’m giving you all I’ve got,” Steven says, lying through his teeth. “High profile diamond auction in the near future; my client’s worried it will attract unwarranted attention.”

“From a Spaniard?”

Steven leans on his suited elbows on the counter, staring absently at the roundup of labels across the bar.

“Possibly London-based, but… to tell you the truth, I doubt it’s someone who’d be on your radar.”

“How so?”

“Just a gut feeling.”

“You used to be one hell of a copper, Gerrard,” John chuckles, swirling his glass until the waves of malt crest on the transparent rocks at the bottom. “Some of us are just fucked up in the head in the right way for the job.”

He taps the now half-empty glass against his forehead to illustrate his point. “Aside from the pay slip… D’you ever miss it?”

“Sometimes,” Steven’s smile into the foam of his beer is as brief as it’s wistful.

“I mean, look at the bloody Rolex… fucking Christ!”

The Detective Inspector settles the emptied heavy-bottomed glass on the bar with a grimace that belies the satisfied grunt accompanying it.

“Took some bottle to do what you did and everyone in Org Crime knows it, nevermind all the other shite.” He gestures to bartender for a refill and Steven assents quietly as it’s becoming obvious who’s footing the bill. “Welcome to 21st century policing. Why should anyone give a fuck you’re a poof?”

“Stop it, you soft arse, I’m tearing up,” Steven laughs.

“Half-poof, whatever. Still into birds, I know. Point is, it should have fuckall to do with you ridding us all of a rotten detective, even if it was one you fancied. Fuck knows why…”

“I didn’t… It was never like that!”

“Yeah, yeah… unrequited boners are a pain. That’s probably why the likes of Cole and Carrick still hate your guts.”

Steven’s seen the now Detective Inspector on many more drinks than tonight and never in such a ruminating mood, so he can only conclude that the Met’s sensitivity training combined with old age is to blame.

“Big, brawny guys like them, can’t blame them for wondering: what’s a cokehead midget who’s too stupid to be a proper crooked copper like Michael Owen’s got that I don’t?”

“Not you though,” Steven leans towards his more advanced drinking companion realizing that this is one of those times when he’d trade the Rolex for a late night of talking bollocks in a stakeout car parked in some shady alley in Bunhill.

“Scousers don’t do it for me. Was wondering though…”

“Uh-oh. Slippery slope that one, JT,” Steven says, struggling to keep a straight face.

“Back when you were still with the leggy blonde… Ever done it with a bloke at the same time?”

“Wha…”

“Cause I ‘ave tell you, I’m picturing it right now,” John interrupts Steven’s protests with a determined swing of his whiskey glass in front of Steven’s face. “and it’s kind of hot, but can’t wrap my head around the logistics, y’know? So…”

Steven shakes his head feeling the beer slosh around his cortex.

“I’m not discussing that with you, Terry. Plenty of bars in London full of lads who’d be more than willing to teach you.”

“There’s my answer then.”

 

  **Tuesday**

“Fresh round for everybody, love,” Didi announces with a cheery slur to the delight of the entire pub and Steven’s dismay. “This lad here’s paying. May not look it, but he’s well minted.”

Steven’s still wearing his golf sweater and the swoosh of the helicopter blades is still ringing in his ears. There are many places he’d rather be in right now, but none of them involve a cesspit somewhere round the back of Holborn whose clientele looks like it can’t spell even spell cesspit, let alone be bothered about wasting their existence in one.

 “No rounds, I’ll settle whatever tab he’s ran up to so far,” Steven informs the beleaguered-looking waitress.

He’s got so much practice picking up Didi Hamann in various states of intoxication from shit dives in Holborn on good nights and even dodgier establishments where he’s hiding from bookies on bad nights that they all now mostly just go through the motions, which makes the German more cooperative than normally expected in such scenarios.

 By the time he’s bundled up in Steven’s car with Steven struggling to drag the seatbelt across his limp form, his head flops onto the cold glass of the passenger’s seat window.

“You’re no fun, Stevie,” he slurs, his German accent thickened by ale. “I’m your… wossname… avatar, you know? Living the private dick cliché so you don’t have to.”

“Won’t be much fun for you in the morning either. I’m planning to actually drag you to the office before lunch,” Steven says, flipping the key into the ignition. “Got an assignment for the two of us.”

 

**Wednesday AM**

Xabi reaches the top of the fire exit stairs three and a half seconds ahead of schedule. He marks it on his stopwatch with a light frown and counts the accelerated thuds of his heart as he walks towards the end of the edge of the Mayfair office building whose blueprints he’s scrolling through on his iPhone. Although no hardhat’s been anywhere in the premises in months, it’s technically still a construction site, its immobile bulk wrapped in construction polyester sheets and miles of red tape in arbitrage courts, which makes it perfect for Xabi’s vantage point in more than one way.

He turns to measure the distance towards the corner facing New Bond Street and draws the strings in his hoodie tighter around his neck against the altitude chill.

The traffic slogs through the street in its usual sluggish stream and Xabi watches it through the filter of his phone. His last snap draws him closer to the edge facing the street and he knows he shouldn’t, but… The man in the navy suit on the opposite sidewalk is looking up with too much intent for Xabi’s liking. Luckily, he’s looking in the opposite direction, scanning the tops of the buildings on the other side of the street.

Xabi jogs back down the fire exit stairs without looking back. It’s only when he’s back in his car that he takes his phone out again and zooms in on the last picture. The man in the navy suit has a clean shaven, youthful face that clashes with the deep lines in his forehead and deep set blue eyes.

 

 

**Wednesday PM**

Steven kicks off his running shoes and drags his feet along the spotless kitchen floor measuring his steps towards the fridge. He pops the cap on his reward beer and savors the chill that runs down his throat competing with the sweat running down his back under his football kit. He hunts for the remote in between the couch cushions, ignoring his ringing phone abandoned on the kitchen counter.

_Sotheby’s London Director Frank Lampard is adamant that the private collector in Spain can provide reliable proof identifying what the London press refers to as Big Blue as the long lost blue diamond of the Spanish crown, el Estanque…_

“Gerrard. Hello…”

Steven’s subconscious reaction to Mr. or Mrs. Unknown Number is always one of snappish impatience but he’s too tired tonight to even bother with it.

“Detective Gerrard. Good evening…”

“Hello? Who is this?”

“I’m afraid I have to be rude and not introduce myself just yet. I’ll just say that I believe you’re looking for me, even though you don’t know it yet.”

“Listen, mate, whatever you’re trying to sell,” Steven starts, turning down the volume on the news because this particular item is yesterday’s scoop for him.

“Steal, not sell. But I found out today that you’re the man who’s going to stand between myself and a beautiful, shiny thing I want. I guess… I wanted to face this challenge early on.”

“You’re aware that this conversation can be traced back to you, right? Whoever gave you my number… For your sake, I hope you’re one of Didi’s crank buddies…”

“Mr. Hamann? Your… colorful associate didn’t give me your number, Steven. I hope you don’t mind if I call you Steven.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Call it professional curiosity. I know who you work for already, I know so many things about you even though I didn’t even know you existed a few hours ago. It makes you wonder about the world we live in, doesn’t it?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“Just thought I should add a personal touch. I love your accent, by the way…”

“Not as much as I love yours. It’ll make my job that much easier and when I find you, you’ll be making your next prank call from the inside of a cell.”

“Oh, I know you’re very thorough, Detective Gerrard. The newspaper reports about your first mission for your current client describe you as a dog with a bone. Relentlessly pursuing his business rivals until they were ground into fine dust… I can only hope to prove myself as big of a challenge in your new mission as you are to me in mine.”

“Assuming you’re not a loon on a wind-up…”

“Do you always wear this shirt when you run?”

Steven’s blood goes cold. He grips his phone harder, trying to not snap towards the big open windows of the kitchen. All he can see from behind the counter is lights pulsing behind his neighbor’s distant windows.

“Sometimes I switch it up with an away kit.”

“Always Carragher 23. He retired last year, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know what kind of game you _think_ you’re playing…”

“Goodnight, Detective Gerrard.”

Steven fights against every cell in his body and does not run towards the window when the line crackles with static.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I so did not have time for this. Sometimes it's between research and editing and editing lost out big time in this Chapter. Apologies for fuckups.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ich will eure Blicke spüren  
> Ich will jeden Herzschlag kontrollieren
> 
> Ich will eure Stimmen hören  
> Ich will die Ruhe stören  
> Ich will dass ihr mich gut seht  
> Ich will dass ihr mich versteht

Steven opens the door to his office to find his bright-eyed secretary sitting in his big leather chair and, as always, he can’t help but think she belongs in the picture far more than he does.

“Morning, Natasha.”

“Oh. Hi, boss,” she says, barely raising her eyes from his computer screen.

“Morning, Miss Dowie,” Didi finally trails behind Steven, wearing yesterday’s clothes and clear signs of the mother of all hangovers on his ashen face. “Lovely as always,” he mumbles, eyes squinting against the wan London light filtered through the massive windows of Steven’s office.

 Natasha breathes out in a certain glib manner by way of response, Didi’s not quite sure why.

“Do I even want to know what you’ve done to my computer this time?”

Steven flicks through the printouts Natasha’s left in his in tray in a neat pile, but he can’t even manage to fake interest. He can feel himself fighting every nerve ending in his body; it’s the kind of restlessness he won’t even admit he’s been missing for years.   

“Chill, you’re a Linux man now, everything’s under control. The antivirus I installed last time should just about cope with all the porn I watch in the privacy of your office when you don’t bother to show up.”

“Good to know I don’t pay you just to have a quiet spot to study for that law degree then.”

“That’s not just CV talk - I’m a multitasker. Sorted through your emails just now,” she nods towards the screen on her way up from Steven’s chair and he’s in no hurry to take his rightful spot. “I cleaned your junk mail folder too, some of which went back to 2012. Hope you weren’t desperate for a bigger penis.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Didi mumbles, rolling over gradually into the plush sofa to the right of Steven’s desk so as to face as far away from the window as possible. “Any size would do at this point, he’s a bowl haircut away from joining the Capuchins.”

Natasha cracks a smile and feels guilty about it while Steven throws his suit jacket on the back of his chair with a sigh.

“Two sugars?”

“Always,” Natasha grins and gathers her Contract Law notes off the desk, uberefficiency radiating from her every brisk move.

“We’re gonna go with black for Didi…”

“How about a bullet to the head instead?”

The office door is almost closed behind Natasha when a ginger head pokes through, shortly followed by the rest of a tall, shiny suited Norwegian bearing a passing resemblance to Jack Nicholson.

“Whoa, look who remembered his name’s on the wall!”

“Morning, Riise. Nice of you to knock,” Steven says with a flinty smile.

“Cream for me, no sugar.” Riise waltzes into the room in full and Steven’s glad Didi’s safely mummified into the sofa and can’t be blinded by the gunmetal gray sheen of his suit. “Came to warn you that you need to hit up Finnan with some decaf. His menses are really bad this month and you’re doing the Hogan, Hogan, Addleshaw & Specter investigation debrief with him at 11. Word is they’re bringing in one of the Hogans so Finns’s totally shitting it.”

“Which Hogan? Clemence?”

“Alicia.”

“Excellent. She’ll love you.”

Riise’s eyebrows go up and a shiver goes through Steven as he remembers the Norwegian’s previous adventures with hair and eyebrow dye, which for some reason he never manages to color-coordinate.

“Finns has got this, probably a little too much, you know he can get a bit… intense with the clients. All you have to do is deploy some Viking charm to loosen them up a little.”

“So send Dagger.”

“Yes, Dan in a room full of corporate lawyers. I’m picturing it right now… I’m sure there’s a punchline in there somewhere.” Riise frowns, knowing he’s just scored an own goal for the gag reel. “Besides, he’s stuck in a hotel room in Dubai, stalking the embezzling director in his case.”

“Still?!?”

“We stopped picking up the phone two days ago. Hopefully a new homemade tattoo is as far as the cabin fever’ll push him this time.”

Riise grunts in commiseration, out of which he recovers quickly.

“How come I get to be the good cop to Finns though? I thought that was your job.”

“Let’s say you’re the good cop, I’m the cop whose name’s on the door. Also, I’m in lockdown with a sensitive case, not to be disturbed. Off limits. Unavailable.”

“Me too,” Didi groans from under a couch pillow. He’s duly ignored.

“Now let me go make us some coffee,” Steven sweetens the deal, but still shepherds Riise towards the door. “Find Finns and get him to fill you in on the details of the Hogan case; perfect excuse to not let him get out of his office until we pour some decaf into him.”

“Ay, ay, skipper!”

Steven’s almost done locking his office door when he hears Riise chirping down the hall:

“Top of the mornin’ to ya, Finnan!”

“BITE ME!”

Steven stretches his back along the closed door, breathes in deeply and feels all his focus return on the exhale.

“You know,” Didi rolls on his side with some difficulty, “one day you’ll have to let some snot-faced intern make the coffee around here. They can’t _all_ be as bad at it as Natasha.”

 

~

“So far he’s hit Monte Carlo, Portofino, Singapore, Paris, the French Riviera… wherever rich knobheads parade their jewelry. Not always diamonds, not even always top of the range expensive. He obviously prefers diamonds though and he likes them pretty. Unique.”

Caffeinated and slightly more alert, Didi follows Steven’s ad-hoc debriefing on his iPad, peering over the thin silver rim of his glasses every now and again as if to tape mental post-its to the frame of the tablet. You can tell Didi’s paying attention because he hasn’t come up with a single Philip Marlowe crack, nor has he given Steven stick yet for his use of dead tree paraphernalia like manila folders and press clippings. Either that or he’s destroying some seventeen-year-old from Taiwan at _Minecraft_. Both are valid options.

“Clean, efficient jobs, not a scratch on anyone…  Not even a broken window. He does carry a gun - threatened a guard in the boutique heist in Paris,” Steven flips to a blurry printout of security camera footage. It’s about as revealing as a Rorschach diagram, save for the unmistakable contour of a brandished semiautomatic handgun about to become the last thing the CCTV camera would ever see. “Something went wrong on his way out there, but he’s never fired a shot at any living thing.”

“He? Looks like at least a two-people job to me.”

“Nah. He works alone.”

“If you say so, Sherlock…”

“He called me,” Steven says in a flat voice, his eyes firmly fixed on his press clippings.

“He what?”

“Called me. To introduce himself… have a chat. He likes to play games.”

“How many calls?”

“A couple…”

_Five, including last night._

“Did you track it?”

“Unregistered number, somewhere in Greater London. It’s not going to get us anything.”

A low accented voice murmurs from Steven’s phone:

_Hello, Detective Gerrard. Am I bothering you? ... I was just wondering how far you got into the history of the Estanque. It sucks you in like the best page turners, doesn’t it?”_

“Rambles on like that for a while,” Steven says, a little quick to stop the recording.

“Aside from the accent, he didn’t let anything slip?”

Steven shakes his head.

“He’s very calculated. Obviously meticulous…”

 

~

_“I have to admit I find myself drifting away from centuries’ worth of history of this gem and more and more focusing on your own instead.”_

“Wow, you sure know how to live a Saturday night to the fullest, don’t you?”

_“At least I’m not watching Match of the Day alone on my sofa, in my comfiest trackpants.”_

The flat hasn’t been bugged. Steven checked. The only logical conclusion is that he really is this predictable.

“So… what are _you_ wearing?” 

Steven licks away a spot of beer foam caught above the corner of his self-satisfied smirk.

 

~

“…just look at the Monte Carlo hit. He danced around every single move the security system made and walked out with half a million in diamonds and emeralds.”

“So our friends in the Flying Squad suffer from a case of crime linkage blindness… Sure, wouldn’t be the first time. But what tipped off our client? Seems a bit odd that he wants to protect a diamond he doesn’t even own yet.”

“The man’s a collector. I suppose rich bastards talk to each other about these things,” Steven says in response to Didi’s squint. “You’re not convinced?”

“Eh, you know how my mind works,” Didi shrugs. “It’s just that… The last time van den Broek paid you to solve one of his problems, his business rivals hired me to kill you.”

His tone is breezy but he’s still squinting.

Steven knows that look. Three years is plenty of time to learn a man’s twitches, grunts and finger-drubbing patterns. He’d be hard pressed to read any of his other associate detectives’ body language in such detail though. Not that Didi’s one of the associates. Or a licensed detective. Or an employee of any kind. In fact, Andre, the broad-shouldered intern who’s always doing three fourths of Riise’s work with the calm assuredness of someone who knows he’ll take over the shop one day, has a more official tenure in Gerrard Investigations than Didi ever will.

Owning things on paper was not a good idea, so officially Steven’s the only founding father of their now thriving business. Luckily, once they’d started using a £300 per hour accountant, finding ever more creative ways to pay Mr. Hamann “consultancy fees” that are downright impossible to track down through the financial system was no longer an issue. He’d be very low-maintenance too, if it weren’t for the gambling.

There’s a raised eyebrow or two from the admin staff every now and then, but Steven doesn’t do gossip and wouldn’t be aware of it anyway. Finnan and Riise, the relatively newer guys, had stopped asking questions after their first night out with the Bavarian, or rather after a googolean number of beers ordered by Didi (and paid by Steven). Agger, the only man Didi can’t drink under the table, is too reserved to comment on their non-accredited colleague and they’ve developed a quiet, Northern sort of stoic mutual respect in the meantime.

As for Steven… well, he owes his life and a great deal of his livelihood to Dietmar Hamann, former failed hitman and retired “problem solver” and that’s good enough for him. He doesn’t worry about his partner still skirting on the edges of criminality. They’ve been too busy to bother after the initial media frenzy died down given that Mr. van den Broek’s recommendations had gone a long way to secure them a portfolio of clients most established agencies develop in a decade. They had a few scares when Didi had simply not turned up for ten days without a call or a text or a travelling pigeon. His absences are now shorter though and nobody pays much attention to the state in which he returns to the sofa in Steven’s office.

“I used to call it my Black Dog in my younger days,” he’d explained to Steven early on in their unorthodox partnership, both propped up on a greasy pub counter, both cursing Manchester City through gritted teeth for bottling it yet again in the Manc derby. Unlike Steven, Didi would still love them after the game. “The ladies go crazy for a brooding drunk, even an ugly fucker like me. Not that you’d need it…” Then he gave Steven a sudden awed look: “Fuck me, if blokes are half as crazy, it takes a real man to handle both.”

He’s no Churchillian drunk though. The prosaic reality is that Didi’s liver simply doesn’t handle certain types of ethanol very well, the types he likes best, so it’s a confrontation in which Didi is destined to always blink first. Those are the days when he actually shows up at the office, sometimes even before lunchtime. On such occasions, he will plop down on the same corner of Steven’s office sofa, take out his tablet and begin to quietly sift through the most mind-numbingly boring minutia of cases. The longest and most irrelevant phone records and corporate snail mail email chains known to man, the dustiest and most arid bank statements Natasha can dump on him, the kind of crap Finnan can’t even bully the interns into shoveling… Didi relishes it all in exchange for nothing but strong coffee and a wurst from the Lithuanian joint around the corner. Steven often comes back from a three-hour meeting to find him in the exact same spot, the empty coffee mug he refills the only sign that Didi had in fact not slept through the afternoon. Other times, he’ll stand up and make a silent straight line for the door only to return the next day with a photograph or some other crucial scrap of evidence that lands on Steven’s desk like a half-dead mouse.

“I shot someone for it,” is the only explanation he’s ever given and it was straight-faced enough that Steven didn’t actually want to know more.

Right now, Steven’s slightly bothered by the fact that something’s obviously whirring away in Didi’s mind about their newest case. He tries to ignore it.

“So… we just let him steal this blue rock back to his obviously native Spain?” Didi asks, still studying security camera footage as if the mask on their target’s face would melt away if only he could stare at it hard enough.

“We’re meeting someone in twenty minutes who can probably tell us what he looks like, if not his real name.”

 

~

_“Aren’t you the least bit curious to know why I’m doing this?”_

“You’re doing this because you’re smart and you’re bored. I’ve seen a lot of shit on the job… Came to realize boredom’s the great unrecognized motivator for a lot of criminal behavior. So I wouldn’t be surprised if you worked in a bank or some other rathole that makes you dead on the inside. You’ve got to keep busy somehow.”

_“Also, the money’s nice.”_

“Nothing like the thrill of the chase… Plus, you can’t move this one. It’s the Mona Lisa problem, unless you’re planning to branch into organized crime with some very unpleasant individuals who don’t give a fuck about Queen Isabela. They’d cut up your structurally perfect precious and use it as collateral for cocaine shipments.”

_“Maybe some things are valuable just because they’re beautiful. Desirable… not because of what they’re worth to anyone else, but because of how they make you feel. The way they make you… want. Nobody said they have to also be good for you. You know all about that, don’t you, Steven? Tell me… how do you stop wanting?”_

“What happened in Monte Carlo?”

_“Wouldn’t you call changing the subject an admission of defeat?”_

“What do you call answering a question with another question?”

_“Nothing happened in Monte Carlo.”_

“True, in a way… If you want to get philosophical about it. But me… I’m from Huyton. I just don’t buy that you’d risk your freedom for some mid-range necklaces and a bunch of emeralds only to mail them to the owner the next day. It wasn’t the jewelry you were after, was it?”

_“You must have an interesting theory already, I’m sure.”_

“Our hourly rates are on the website. I don’t come cheap, _‘Javier’_ …”

_Click._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recollect me darling raise me to your lips  
> Two undernourished egos four rotating hips

“Mrs. Moir, can’t thank you enough for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice,” Steven says, relieved to get through the introductions and the coffee order under the scrutiny of a waiter who makes no secret of the fact that he finds Steven underdressed because he’s not wearing a tie on top of his ridiculously expensive suit.

“Everybody needs a little excitement in their lives,” says the petite brunette who’s studying Didi with an intense flicker of her almond eyes. Her voice is the prototype sound reel for every _Oh, you Brits!_ line Steven’s ever heard in an American movie and he’d laugh if he didn’t have a huge favor to ask of Her New Yorkness.

“How many people can say they’ve done brunch with a private dick?”

Steven kicks Didi under the table just in time and his mouth stays mercifully silent after the initial gasp of pain.

“Even though there’s no client relationship, I can assure you the same confidentiality rules apply. Your name would never appear in any case file.”

Finnan would be proud. Well, not exactly. Finnan would freak the fuck out at the lack of legal cover at first, but Steven likes to think he’d at least appreciate the afterthought.

“Can I start with a question of my own?”

“All the best detectives do,” Didi smiles, his eyes fixed on her manicured fingers drawing circles on the heavy linen napkin.

“How did you find me? I mean… why me? My name’s not on the police report in Monte Carlo, at least not that I’m aware of.”

“Your husband’s is and while doing a standard name search on him, I found out that he’s soon to be your ex-husband.”

“Ah, looking for the scorned wife angle, I see. Smart… I like it,” Mrs. Moir sounds genuinely appreciative, shifting the scrutiny of her bright eyes to Steven. “I have to disappoint you, I’m afraid; ours is a very amiable divorce.”

“That would mean you got to keep your recovered diamonds then, correct?”

“They’ve always been mine – Karl’s the one who married into money and I was never that into them anyway. Karl is this girl’s best friend, Mr. Hamann. I intend to keep it that way even though our marriage is over.”

“You must have been relieved to get them back though,” Steven shifts in his chair, leaning back a little. “I’ve never seen a criminal with a bad case of remorse before in all my years of chasing them and judging by their reaction, neither have the Monte Carlo police. They didn’t really know what to make of it, but there wasn’t much they could do about it once your husband withdrew the complaint.”

“All’s well that ends well, right?”

There’s a feeling of delaying the inevitable hanging over their discreet restaurant table. Steven’s seen people who were dying to talk to him, to anyone, hold on to one more question, to one more turn of phrase, clinging to the confessional pew. It always ends the same way as long as he’s patient enough for it.

“As I said earlier on the phone… that police report is the reason we need your help, Mrs. Moir. It’s not often that you meet a victim who remembers the robber’s name but not a single helpful detail about what he looks like. What your husband did mention was that on the night of the… incident, you invited a man at your villa. For drinks. Mr. Moir said he couldn’t remember anything other than his name: Javier. Was too drunk for specifics, even suspected both of you were drugged.”

“Well, he _would_ say that…”

“Your memory wasn’t as affected as his, was it?”

Mrs. Moir’s small frame begins to relax, losing perhaps a note of her inborn composure, but she doesn’t seem to regret it.

“We met him at the Black Jack table at the Casino. He’s about your age, I’d say… Spanish, beautiful and wears the hell out of a tuxedo. It was obvious after just two sips of champagne that we both wanted the same thing.”

“So… you take him to your place and he spikes your husband’s drink before…”

“Before they fucked? No need. I can assure you, all three of us were more than willing participants. Sharing is caring, that’s the agreement. Or it used to be… until that night.”

Didi saves himself another backheel kick under the table by keeping his mouth shut tight.

“Going by your husband’s temporary amnesia, it’s safe to say it wasn’t a public agreement,” Steven says in a careful tone.

“It takes a special kind of relationship to be able to pull it off, Mr. Gerrard. And we had it. The four years since we’ve started seeing other people have brought us closer than ever. Karl’s always been terrified of the reaction at work though. He would have never lived down the looks, the whispers, the double-edged comments… I still don’t know what he agreed to pay to get the stupid jewelry back and if he’s never told me, he won’t tell you either. He begged me to keep quiet about it. No harm done, no need to expose ourselves to further scrutiny, to anymore questions… But I could see from the look in his eyes that life as we know it had ended.”

“But you went along with it anyway.”

“He wasn’t even Karl’s type. Physically,” she adds through heavy lowered lashes. “We used to take turns picking our partners and that night wasn’t my turn, but… Well, you kind of have to see this guy to understand.”

“I’d like to Mrs. Moir,” Steven says, clasping his hands in front of his coffee cup to still his fingers. “Find him, I mean… I’d like to find him. Do you think you can describe him for us?”

“Well, there’s the beard…”

 

~

They’re well past the taxi stand by the restaurant by the time anyone can think of anything to say, but the wet pavement seems to attract both Steven and Didi’s eyes like a magnet so they just keep walking.

“So… we’re looking for Ewan McGregor with a lisp?” Didi asks at last. 

“Maybe we’re lucky and he’s just overdoing it with the method, preparing for a part.”

“Allright, lad, out with it,” Didi stops and turns to Steven. “You’ve been sitting on this all day.”

“You gotta ask first.”

Didi’s eyes couldn’t possibly roll any further inside his head.

“The suspense is killing me: what does Mr. Moir do for a living?”

Steven guides them closer to the glassy store front of a hat boutique to keep clear of the midday human traffic passing them by on the sidewalk.

“He’s a bean counter with one of the Big Four. An accountant specialized in insurance valuations. He also happens to be the Key Account Manager for Sotheby’s London.”

Didi stares into thin air, intensely bland-faced. Steven knows he’s set in motion a train of thought he has no hope of catching by the question he hears next:

“Where’s the diamond now?”

“In a vault at Sotheby’s.”

“And before that… they brought it from Madrid?”

“Lampard flew over there himself, it's his baby.”

“I need your credit card,” Didi announces, eyes back on Steven’s face now. “For a business trip.”

“Where to?”

“Amsterdam.”

“What’s in Amsterdam?”

“A bloke in the jewelry business who owes me a favor.”

“So give him a call. They’ve slashed international rates since Thatcher’s time, y’know.”

“It’s not that kind of business.”

“Mate, the diamond auction is in 72 hours…”

“69 and a half and we’re spending some of it haggling on the sidewalk like two old cunts at the fish market.”

Steven sighs.

“We work on this together, Didi. I know you get your… ideas, but if you let me in on your theories maybe I can help.” He bites his lip. Steven’s had a lot of practice with imposing the kind of limits that come with having a business partner who can’t have a bank account of his own, but it still makes him feel like a dick. “It’s either that or you can call Natasha to book you a flight on the company card. There’s a chance she won’t put you on Ryan Air this time if you ask nicely.”

Didi shoves his hands in his pockets, scanning the influx of traffic released from the intersection.

“I don’t know what I’m thinking yet. Could be something, could be nothing and we don’t have time to get you sidetracked into it. It’s just… something doesn’t add up. Nobody works alone in this trade. So my worry is your Javier has got you thinking what he wants you to think.” He shifts his weight from one foot to another, avoiding Steven’s eyes when he asks:

“What should I be thinking then?”

“It’s not like that, Stevie… Something actually tells me you’re on the right track here, but listen… all that bullshit where the copper gets inside the bad guy’s mind and starts to think like the criminal… That’s Hollywood Scheiße. You’ve got killer instincts, it’s what makes you a great detective,” Didi says, waiting for the tense set of Steven’s shoulders to loosen up. “But you’ll never think like a criminal because you’re not a criminal. _I_ ’m a criminal.”

“You know what would really help when you’re trying to convince me to give my credit card to a gambling addict and… habitual substance abuser? For a weekend to Amsterdam of all places? Using the past tense when you say stuff like that,” Steven grouses, but reaches for his wallet nonetheless. “Fucking hell, Didi, if I end up having to cover bets on wrestling midgets or…”

“That was _one_ time and they prefer the term Little People, for the record. You won five Gs anyway, I have a good eye for picking the nastiest little fucker in the ring…”

Steven’s hand goes back into his pocket in a flash.

“A’right, a’right! I’ll file a detailed expense report with Miss Dowie, down to the last penny, I swear,” Didi concedes with his hands up in a gesture of slightly defiant defeat. “I only need the card to book flights and the like, the fun things in Amsterdam you can get with cash anyway.”

And so Steven hands him the little square a plastic despite the nasty twist in his gut.

“Call me as soon as you’ve got something. Actually, call me even if you don’t.”

Didi assents with a nod.

“Are you going to tell Lampard about Moir?”

“Not much to tell, is there? I think I can still find a way to warn him about a potential… security leak without getting him involved,” Steven says in a quiet voice and goes back to studying the pavement. “You be careful, OK?”

Didi pats his shoulder with a wink.

“I’ll bring you Amsterdam cookies.”

~

Steven spends Saturday running aimless laps around Battersea Park and not paying attention to Liverpool slaughtering Arsenal on BT Sport. He stares at his phone approximately every ninety five seconds instead. There’s still no sign for Didi by the time Steven passes out on his sofa with a stack of blue diamond literature scattered on top of him.

On Sunday, he finds the thought of Didi passed out in some Red Light District brothel comforting, but heads towards Sotheby’s still staring at his phone. There’s no call from “Javier” either although that’s not unexpected.

He spots Detective Inspector Terry’s receding hairline towering above the crowd that’s still trying to find their seats inside Sotheby’s packed auction room.

“So how did your talk with Lampard go?” Steven asks, watching the man himself fuss over the floodlights that bathe the room into an ethereal glow.

“Spectacular,” John Terry says as they move towards the back row over the constant hum of the room, “He insulted my intelligence in Latin, I pointed out that his Chief of Security is Gary Pigeon Brains Cahill. Quid-pro-suck-my-bollocks-quo.”

Somewhere beyond the buzz of reporters and photographers adjusting their tripods, Lampard’s got a nervous grin permanently screwed onto his face. He wears a dark blue tie to complement the clear pond reflection of El Estanque which is assaulting the audience from every corner of the room.

The diamond’s blue omniscience reflects from the massive posters flanking the auction podium, sparkles from the flatscreens hung high above the rows of telephone bidders and defies scrutiny around the neck of Queen Isabela on the cover of the auction leaflets everyone’s holding next to their poised cameras. It’s only the real thing that’s absent. Steven remembers from his reading that the wall behind Lampard’s podium has a niche from which El Estanque is supposed to twirl into view once the auction starts. Which should have been about six minutes ago by his watch.

Detective Inspector Terry takes an at-ease pose once he settles into a vantage point to his liking. The auction floor spreads under their eyes and Steven catches Glen Johnson’s bald head turning to give him a discreet nod and a smile from somewhere in front row.

“Relax, Gerrard. Lampard came around to it eventually.”

“Not enough to cancel the auction, I see.”

“Would you have done it if you were him? Based on the vague bullshit you served him up?”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him what you told me, which you and I both know is not the whole story, but hey…client confidentiality can be your fig leaf until an actual crime takes place and then your arse is mine. Metaphorically speaking, of course.” Terry stops to savor Steven’s deepening frown. “Told him that an underling down the logistics chain lost a cellphone somewhere on the way from Madrid and he’s got a potential security breach on his hands. Lampard agreed to change the security codes around the place and allow my boys to mingle with these swank arseholes as long as we’re discreet,” he concludes, nodding towards his boys, which include a young lady huddling with her colleague in the corner.

“Oh, and I stuck Ahsley Cole out in the graveyard shift by the parking lot, thought you might like that.”

Steven fights a grin creeping into the corner of his mouth.

He leaves the Detective Inspector to his perch and makes his way towards a rare empty seat he’s spotted in the back corner just as his phone begins to ring. He doesn’t even check the display, too caught up in observing the agitated underling who leans towards Lampard and whispers something in his ear.

_“Hello, Detective Gerrard. Is this a bad time?”_

“You tell me,” Steven says, voice distant to his own ears.

At the other end of the floor Lampard goes bone white in the face.

_“Well, I am in fact a bit… caught up in something at work. No rest for the wicked on a weekend... but I’m about to finish up here. I was hoping you could join me for an afterhours drink… In about twenty minutes?”_

Steven turns on his heels towards the side of the room he’s just left, but John Terry is already gone. He starts to walk with big strides to catch up with the younger police officers who are rushing towards a side exit just as he catches Lampard skipping towards the podium.

_“My treat…”_

“Sure,” Steven says in a noncommittal manner that does not betray the fact that he’s started running down a long corridor in pursuit of the police.

_“Mahiki, Mayfair, in twenty minutes. I’ll be wait…”_ Steven shoves the phone into his pocket as by now he needs both arms to keep his balance while running.

By now the muffled noise of the auction room is long behind him so he doesn’t hear Lampard’s choked announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the delay. There’s been a slight… technical glitch. Please help yourselves to the complimentary champagne in the lobby…” 

The next three minutes or so unfold with such dizzying speed that Steven can’t even remember barging past confused security guards who make room for him as he’s riding the police’s coat tails. He sees another man running past the fire doors and only realizes it’s Ashley Cole once Steven leaves him trailing in his wake, wheezing and cussing. By the time he can get his bearings the ponytailed police officer is in his sights again, leaping in synch with her colleague and rugby tackling a tall man wearing a security guard uniform accessorized with a ski mask over his face.

He thrashes violently for a while until Detective Inspector Terry’s knee lands on the back of his neck and his gun presses into the back of his head.

Steven stands in a daze, his breath rushing out in heat waves through his nostrils. He feels like he’s in slow motion as Terry yells at Officer Bertrand to grab the perp by the collar and haul him to his feet.

“Up you go, there’s a good lad,” Bertrand sneers, shoving the man face-first against the brick wall of the back yard.

There are now three guns aimed at the robber, although Detective Cole’s is still brandished from some distance behind Steven.

Bertrand’s ponytailed colleague starts to frisk the man’s heaving torso until her free hand snatches a black velvet pouch from an inner pocket of his uniform. She holds it victorious in front of her boss, but Terry doesn’t bother to check it. He grabs the perp by the shoulder instead and flips him on his back, warning him to keep his hands up high where they are with a nasty chuckle. Steven takes two steps closer when Terry pulls the mask off the suspect’s face.

“ _Да ты еба в гуза_ ,” the man spits out with an insolent smile that twinkles in his grayish blue eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Compromise me, vandalize me, have a ball  
> Destroy me and enjoy me through it all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I highly recommend the original version of the soundtrack to this chapter:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cJ3uyAU104

Frank Lampard’s face doesn’t lose its cyanotic blue hue until the auction gavel goes down to rapturous applause. To everyone else he looks excited and proud to have concluded one of the biggest diamond auctions in history. To Steven, he looks like a man who’s just seen his career flash before his eyes. Not that Steven’s one to talk. Afterall, he has only the vaguest recollection of Glen Johnson stopping by to shake his hand, smiling victorious and looking dashing as ever. He’d mentioned something about a bonus. Mission accomplished. Old man’d love to have him over for a round of golf in Scotland. Or maybe the Derby.  
The room is still buzzing even though it’s slowly being depopulated…

“Not Spanish, but we’ll take it, eh?”

Steven startles when Detective Inspector John Terry’s palm connects with his shoulder blade. He squeezes his eyes in an attempt  
to rein in his mind and bring it back inside his body then says:

“I need a name.”

“Like you don’t know already that I’m not authorized to…”

“Fuck authorized, you wouldn’t even _be_ here if it weren’t for information volunteered by my client!”

Terry’s chin drops to the side. 

“Berbatov. Dmitry… Demeter or something,” he sighs. “Bertrand and Chapman are taking him in for processing as we speak, but that’s our man. Charge sheet the size of my arm, specializes in odd jobs for the Bulgarian mafia, including collateralizing stolen art in drug deals. Lad’s got a reputation as an artist himself, seems he just bit off more than he could chew this time.”

Terry’s hawkish eyes drop towards the vibrating pocket of Steven’s leather jacket.

“You going to get that?”

Steven nods but makes no move to answer. 

“Thanks, JT.”

It’s only once he’s outside the auction house, the spring evening wind blasting against his face, that Steven reaches for his phone. 

_Your scotch doesn’t age very well outside the barrel._

~

Steven finds him at the bar, draped over a stool with a deceptively unguarded sort of elegance and nursing a glass of something Scottish-looking and rapidly disappearing. He’s wearing a light gray suit rather than a tux, but everything else fits Mrs. Moir’s description oh so well. 

“Detective Gerrard… I helped myself to your first round,” he says with a bright smile over the retro remix floating in from the dance floor. “The wait was a little longer than expected.”

“So what should I call you,” Steven asks, sliding onto the bar stool that’s been reserved for him for an hour. “I’d go with coward who’s all talk and no end product, but it’s a bit of a mouthful.”

“I’ll be delighted to finally meet you as soon as I make sure we have some privacy…”

Steven realizes just how close their stools are when he has to move his knee to the side to avoid bumping it into the other man’s leg. In the blink of an eye, Xabi’s hands reach under Steven’s open jacket, trailing down his sides in a slow, deliberate slide, his fingers outspread and searching. He’s been frisked for surveillance equipment before, just never by someone who smells of citrus, powdery shaving soap and something Steven wouldn’t know to call sandalwood anyway. 

“It’s just the two of us,” Steven promises, swallowing the dryness in his throat.

“Xabier Alonso.” One hand pulls back to his scotch glass. The other lingers a bit before it retreats. “You can call me Xabi. I wish we could have done this under different circumstances, believe me…”

Steven’s head snaps back, propelled by bone-dry laughter. 

“That’s funny that is. Those words coming from you…”

“I’ve had to improvise, this wasn’t part of the plan,” Xabi says, taking in every microscopic detail of the way Detective Gerrard’s eyes crinkle when he laughs. 

“The plan? You mean wasting my time while you paid a thug to do your dirty work qualifies as a plan?”

“Advertising’s not the most admired job in the world, but I wouldn’t go so far.”

Xabi lifts two fingers pointed at his empty glass and waits for the bartender’s silent acknowledgment as Steven continues to chuckle. 

“An ad man, huh?... _That _I actually believe.”__

__This man in front of a boardroom of skeptics he can’t wait to have eating out of his palm is not a stretch of anybody’s imagination, least of all Steven’s._ _

__“Here’s something else you should believe: I’m here because I’m trying to save your life. You’re about to endanger it for no good reason.”_ _

__“You got more hired muscle waiting for me at my flat?”_ _

__“No, but it’d be very unlike you to just let it go and walk away, even if it’s in everybody’s best interest…” Xabi pauses to let the bartender settle two stocky glasses between them. “When I took up this… assignment, I didn’t expect it to have very little to do with a long lost historic jewel. It turns out it was nothing but means to an end. A couple of ends actually and you’re one of them.”_ _

__Steven licks the scotch around the inside of his mouth, careful to keep his eyes trained on the malt-colored irises of Xabi’s eyes and his lips from smacking appreciatively. It _is_ damn fine scotch. _ _

__“And yet, here I am.”_ _

__“It’d be best if you were somewhere else though. Take a nice vacation somewhere sunny and quiet, don’t send postcards.”_ _

__“I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself. I’ve got a lot of time on my hands, now that my case is solved; getting a bonus for it too, apparently. Which is funny considering that you stole the diamond, the real diamond, before I was ever hired to protect it.”_ _

__Steven could swear the ginger bristles above the corners of Xabi’s mouth are twitching._ _

__“That would be impossible, wouldn’t it? Sotheby’s hires the world’s top gemologists to certify the diamonds they put on auction. A fake would never get through, it would be ruinous to their reputation and quite embarrassing for the purchaser too,” Xabi says and somehow manages to slink even closer to Steven. His personal space is now reduced to an inch and not even a full one at that._ _

__He doesn’t budge._ _

__“Oh, they certified the real deal, no doubt about that. You snatched it before the ink was even dry on the certificate, the one that went to the insurance company...” Steven waits for a glimmer of recognition if not outright surprise, but finds none. “Then you replaced El Estanque with a fake diamond. It couldn’t have been that hard; a private collector in Spain and all their private security measures laid out in detail for the insurance valuation. You… made out with all the information you needed the week before from the laptop of a certain insurance exec, in Monte Carlo.”_ _

__“Phone. For the sake of indulging your little fantasy,” Xabi lowers his voice but it’s still at audible levels, even under the relentless efforts of the DJ. He’s twisting a piercing 1960s trumpet and Frank Sinatra’s sandpaper voice into a bouncing club anthem. “I would have downloaded his phone. It’s not 2003 anymore, Steven.”_ _

__The bass vibrates through the thick wood of the bar and into Steven’s forearm leaning on it._ _

__“You’re not even Moir’s type, by the way. It was the wife who talked him into it,” he continues, undaunted, and is rewarded with the faintest narrowing of those gold eyes that have not stopped staring into Steven’s as if he were put in a trance since Steven sat down._ _

__Not that he thinks Xabier Alonso the kind of man who’d believe he’s not somebody’s type._ _

__“Where would I even get a fake diamond that could convincingly pass for a uniquely beautiful, historic gem?”_ _

__“Amsterdam. Or maybe Sevilla, where the original was cut, or wherever sixteenth century diamond cutting methods are still alive. So probably The Netherlands. Doesn’t matter… I’m not the one who figured that part out, by the way, my partner got that idea a while ago. But once I made a phone call to one of my best detectives on my way here, the part that didn’t make sense clicked.”_ _

__Xabi watches Steven’s mouth in silence from under his lashes without any obvious intention to interrupt._ _

__“A man is being questioned right now by the Organized Crime squad, a man who got caught running down Sotheby’s corridors with a diamond in his pocket like some amateur nicking a champion turnip at the country fair. Trouble is, you only need one quick Interpol search to figure out he’s not an amateur, our Mr. Berbatov. He’s no roulette-spinning, egomaniac weekend criminal either, but an actual break-your-legs pro who can tell a Vermeer from his arse, which is a specialized skillset in his world. He also knows better than to trip alarms in an auction house packed with police officers…”_ _

__“Everyone has an off day sometimes,” Xabi gives a minuscule shrug, his drink now long forgotten._ _

__“I reckon he’ll probably say just that. Counselled by the best solicitor money can buy, no doubt. He’ll say he worked alone, that he needed the money to pay off debts from a deal gone bad. Or to buy protection from one of the cappos of the Bulgarian mafia. See… on my way here, I heard this interesting rumor. Apparently, Berbatov forgot his place in this world and eloped with the daughter of a Plovdiv boss last year. Daddy got his Princess back, but Berbatov’s led a very jittery life on the run since then. So I’m thinking, a tax-subsidized stay in a high security facility in the UK with the prospect of a reduced sentence for model behavior… That’s probably more than enough to lure him into acting like an incompetent twat for your amusement.”_ _

__Steven reaches for his glass, his throat parched and his eyes burning with the strain of keeping the buzz in his blood from surfacing._ _

__“Sounds like a pretty reckless plan,” Xabi says with a thoughtful frown. “Your client is a diamond man through and through, he wouldn’t stand for such humiliation.”_ _

__“Maybe that was the point. You said the diamond was a mean to a couple of ends… If I’m one of it, humiliating Van der Broek into paying a colossal amount of money for a trinket might just be the other.”_ _

__Steven needs no reaction to feel that he’s right, he can sense it in the pit of his stomach._ _

__“I’m going to give some credit,” he adds, “and trust you didn’t come up with this part of the plan. Whoever hired you fucked up big time on this bit though. Van der Broek’s not going to make a peep in public. He might tear poor Lampard to shreds in private… but he’ll be coming after you… after your boss next. He grew up dirt poor in a South African ranch, watched his family get shot when he was 7, started working in a diamond mine with his bare hands before he turned 11, bought the mine by age 19. He’s very territorial about what’s his and doesn’t take it lightly when someone fucks with him, take my word for it.”_ _

__“You’re his kind… You and Johnson, his CEO, you remind him of himself. He respects you, maybe he’s even fond of you,” Xabi sketches a small smile as if he finds the thought endearing. “He obviously felt some measure of guilt for the way you ended up with a contract on your head last time… But don’t think for a minute that he’d go out of his way to protect you, especially not after you couldn’t come through for him now… Oh, he might understand there was no time to figure it out, it’s no reflection on your abilities,” he murmurs apologetically and sounds so fucking genuine and loath to hurt his feelings, Steven can’t find the restraint to not laugh again._ _

__“These people though… They do not play by rules designed for us mortals, Steven. When the Russian upstart started to buy up Van der Broek’s mines, he didn’t cut prices, didn’t streamline a better business plan... none of the bullshit a corporate mind would think of. He brought you in instead, got you to rifle through his rival’s trash until he was on every blacklist, official and unofficial, on every investigative reporter’s notepad and off the credit ledger of any bank big enough to fund his enterprise. And you were _relentless_ … The horrors you uncovered in his mining operations stayed on magazine covers for weeks, you even inspired Hollywood to look into blood diamonds. So it wasn’t long before Van der Broek got his throne back. To the victor go the spoils… The loser shot his brains out with his father’s Soviet pistol.”_ _

__“I sleep just fine at night,” Steven says, curling his lip over the rim of his glass before he downs it._ _

__“Oh, nobody’s saying you have any reason not to. You’ve done a lot of defenseless people a great favor, things have improved since Van der Broek’s takeover. Hardly any slave labor. The world is a better place without one Arkadyevich brother in it, there’s no denying it. The problem is the other one’s still alive… and after your blood.”_ _

__“So that’s who’s holding your leash then.”_ _

__Xabi’s voice goes three shades darker, almost matching his beard._ _

__“You are not charming your way out of this hit job, Steven. They’ve learned their lesson with Mr. Hamann.”_ _

__“Is that where your perfect diamond is now?” Steven frowns, a hint of cruel amusement in his words. “Tossed in the jewelry box of some fat-necked oligarch next to his Sunday cufflinks?”_ _

__Steven wishes he could find the thought more satisfying than it actually is, but he’s read enough about it to think it’s a perfectly innocent rock that’s been through enough already._ _

__“This is not a joke, Steven. Neither of us has any stake in it anymore, let them sink their claws into each other all they want and walk away. You have no way of proving anything...”_ _

__“You’re bluffing, you know there’s nothing stopping me from calling the police. I have a few recorded phone chats we’ve had about the diamond, they’d make for interesting listening at the Met headquarters.”_ _

__Xabi’s whole face transforms in an instant, the shift in the tissue supporting the whole structure so minute and so exquisite, it makes Steven’s breath lurch in his throat._ _

__“It’s all my fault, Your Honour,” Xabi says, eyes suddenly warm and contrite, “It was my idea... Stupid, really… He was working on this case… We played cops and bandits, I was the bandit, he was the cop,” Xabi’s register changes again to demure rapture before he exhales. “He caught me, tied me up to the bed and _ravished_ me like an animal.”_ _

__Steven’s mouth opens then shuts wordlessly._ _

__“I thought we were only having a bit of fun… We’ve only just met… It was only a game at first, but then… he became increasingly needy and controlling… completely unhinged.” Xabi’s hands move up Steven’s thighs, caressing him lightly in utter disconnect with his voice. “I really should have known better with Steven’s… history,” he adds, moving his mouth to Steven’s ear before he can react. He breathes Steven in once, twice then: “I knew how affected he was when Owen and Ferdinand walked free out of court after Steven was considered an unreliable witness because of his… unhealthy attachment to his former partner.”_ _

__Steven pulls back slowly, the mix of anger and astonishment simmering quietly under his skin. Xabi’s fingers dig into the flesh of his thighs with just enough pressure to let him know moving any further would be unwise._ _

__“I should have known he would get too emotionally attached, but… those eyes, Your Honour… I just… I wasn’t thinking. Well, not with my head anyway… Dios, there’s probably security camera footage from public places where I’m practically crawling into his lap.”_ _

__Steven doesn’t give him the satisfaction of looking up from his face, partly because he knows already that the camera in the corner is perfectly angled towards their spot at the bar and partly because doing so would result in his lips brushing against  
Xabi’s beard due to their imposed closeness. _ _

__“I’m deeply sorry, Your Honour. It was foolish of me and I take the full blame. It just breaks my heart to see how rejection has turned Steven into a raving… paranoid…” Xabi moves his nose across Steven’s cheek and back so he can look at him again before he concludes with: “Liar” whispered in a malty soft breath across Steven’s lips._ _

__Xabi doesn’t see it coming. In half a second, Steven’s standing up, taking his head in both hands and growling above the corner of Xabi's mouth:_ _

__“You asked me once how you can stop wanting. Here’s the thing… I don’t know. You really fucked up now… You’ve made me want to see you pay for this. Pro bono.”_ _

__He plants a heavy, biting kiss on Xabi’s lower lip, making sure they’re as visible as possible to the camera, and releases his head before he turns on his heels and pushes his way out of the club crowd._ _

__~_ _

__He’s two streets away, walking blindly through throngs of tourists and people who are drunker but less impaired than he’s feeling when he recognizes the shrill chime of his phone._ _

__“Natasha… hey, sorry I didn’t have time to say thanks for the Berbatov research earlier,” Steven says, trying to find his normal voice again. “You still at the office?”_ _

__He’s about to chastise her for spending Sunday night hiding from her drunk uni flat mates so she can study in his office instead of joining them, when Steven first recognizes the off note in her voice._ _

__“Boss… I checked the work email… The Amsterdam police want your phone number. They found your credit card on a dead body...”_ _


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How you wish I was blind  
> I couldn't look into your eyes  
> And torture you

Steven doesn’t travel well under the best of circumstances. Not that he minds lounging on a white sand beach and sipping alcohol out of a pineapple at 2 pm, nor is he averse to digging into some unidentified sea creature smothered in garlic and wine on a breezy pier; he’s just not a fan of the process of getting from his sofa to sunny foreign shores.

These are far from even mediocre circumstances

He spent the morning ignoring screaming children at Heathrow (there’s something to be said for shock and numbness) and a large part of a rained out afternoon inside the concrete and neon cocoon of an Amsterdam police station. The Dutch Detective Superintendent lady who’d made no secret of her distaste towards police officers who go into the private sector had hovered her unconvinced gaze over him through countless reformulated questions they both knew were designed to trip Steven over. At least he was spared a trip to the morgue since the results of an encounter between a Bavarian skull and a large caliber weapon fired at inch-close range leave very little to be identified and the body was found missing most of his face but with a valid passport.

The numbness wore off about three hours ago, there are raindrops dripping into Steven’s shirt collar and on the back of his leather jacket from the back of his head and the sludge served as coffee at the police station (a constant of the cop universe he’d found soothing a few hours ago) is giving him a hell of a heartburn.

Steven lacks the energy to be startled or angered when he opens his hotel door to find Xabi laying comfortably on his bed, his back resting against the headboard and his feet neatly crossed over the edge. He’s perusing a beatup copy of The Daily Mail he probably stole from the plane. Its BIG BLUE FINDS LOVING MANSION front page had made Steven laugh the sort of quiet, manic laugh that frightens one’s fellow aisle passengers on his own flight from London.

Xabi is the one who looks surprised to see him instead.

“Don’t they teach you to knock in Spain?” Steven sighs, closing the door behind him and shuffling towards the bed.

“I’m from the terrorist part, you’re lucky there’s no fuming hole in it,” Xabi grins, dumping the tabloid on the pristine bedspread and rising to his feet.

“If you’re here to shoot me and dump me into a canal, you’ve got piss poor timing – just got back from talking to the police.

“I know,” Xabi says, checking the equivalent of a small nation’s education budget on his wrist, which just so happens to be perfectly matched to his dove-grey raincoat. “It’s taken you a bit more to lie your way out of it than I expected.”

Steven shoves his hands in his pockets to further signal that he’s not in the mood for his crap right now or anytime soon.

“You should trust that choir boy face of yours more. It’s a gift,” Xabi adds, seamlessly advancing two steps closer into Steven’s personal space. “It’s just facial structure… People would follow you into battle anywhere, they’d put their lives into your hands. I smile to the little old lady who makes the delicious scones in the café across from our office and she instinctively moves closer to the cash register.”

“Maybe I told the truth,” Steven says.

“Maybe your Dutch colleagues would have believed you. Or maybe you’re too blinded by grief and rage to not want to go on your revenge mission. Steven… I don’t mean to be callous. Whatever you may think of me… I’m sorry for your loss, I know you were close to Mr. Hamann. But I’m trying to stop you from ending up in the same…”

The punch lands so hard on Xabi’s mouth that the warm spray of blood trickling in from his lower lip hits him before the pain can catch up. He stumbles back towards the wall a couple of steps and pats his fingers against the mottled hairs on his chin. Steven tries to shake the sting out of his knuckles. He’s watching transfixed as the redness of Xabi’s beard intensifies around the open wound.

The bastard’s smiling.

Then he straightens up and heads back towards Steven with slow, measured steps and Steven feels naked, all of a sudden missing the comforting weight of a semiautomatic weapon on his hip. This happens to him sometimes in the middle of a case, the abrupt realization that he’s no longer an armed officer of the law, like he’s forgotten he’s now wearing a different cloak, a different badge (Overpaid Busybody #3025), but he’s never felt the immediacy of danger with such intensity before. He’ll tell himself that’s why he fails to react when Xabi grabs his face and crushes his bloodied lips against his own, as if it’d make any difference.

Steven’s brain kicks into another gear when he opens his mouth to the saltiness of Xabi’s kiss. He’s absurdly concerned about Dutch coffee breath, but Xabi doesn’t seem to mind at all judging by the hot gasp he lets out when Steven runs his tongue across the smarting cut in his lip, his hands flying under his assailant’s jacket and down towards his hips. No gun.

The bed is only three steps away, an insignificant distance when the man you’re pushing onto it with a bit more violence than strictly necessary is as eager to get there as Xabi is. It might have been a while, but Steven’s decisive movements give away nothing when he swats Xabi’s hands away from his hair to push his arms up towards the headboard as he straddles Xabi’s hips.

Steven’s reluctant to let go of Xabi’s wrists, but that’s a problem best solved by continuing to kiss him while moving his fingers to his own belt buckle. The sound of its clasp springing open makes Xabi pant a little harder.

“You look like a hungry vampire,” he smirks, stretching under Steven, who’s momentarily paralyzed by the thought that what he actually looks like is an extra from a Z horror movie with another man’s very real blood smeared across his mouth.

He licks a salty trail off his lower lip, a ghost of a grin hidden under the gesture, and goes right back to the business of tying up Xabi’s wrists to the headboard with his leather belt.

“I knew you’re an excellent listener, Detective Gerrard,” Xabi purrs, his livewire body fighting to stay trapped between Steven’s thighs.

His eyes are locked onto Steven’s, his pink mouth half-opened in fevered anticipation. Steven just sits there on top of him, catching his breath for a moment before he rasps out a question:

“What’s in Paris?”

“Oh, I see… Travel Agent is a new one to me, but OK…”

“ _Don’t_! You know what I mean. What’s Paris got to do with any of it?”

Xabi stretches his neck defiantly, the burning of his eyes shaded.

“What are you going to do with me if I don’t tell you? Choke me with your bare hands…?”

It sounds too much like something Xabi’d enjoy so Steven resists the twitch in his fingers.

“I don’t plan to do a fucking thing to you,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound as disappointed as he feels about it. “If you’re so bloody concerned about my safety, how about you tell me yourself? Take your time, you’re not moving from here until you learn to play nice and share.”

“El Estanque is in Paris,” Xabi swallows, tugging at his wrists for the first time with a half-hearted sort of effort since he'd hoped for and expects a sturdy knot from Steven. “The real one. Since you insist on not dropping off the radar, I’m going to have to… recover it and trade it for your life.”

This seems to strike Steven as hilarious, he can only stop chuckling once he runs his jacket wrist across his mouth to wipe the last traces of Xabi’s blood.

“Trade… Why would Arkadyevich want to trade something he already…” There are no pins anywhere in the room, but a proverbial one could very well be heard dropping. “You screwed him over too, didn’t you?... You made two fake diamonds?!?”

“Cost a medium-sized fortune, which is why I couldn’t be picky with the other gems I… invested in this one,” Xabi grumbles.

“So now I have the Russian mafia trying to kill me over a fucking fake rock they _paid_ you for…”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be that way, but since you give me no choice… I’ll give them the real one if they let you live.”

“A noble thief, eh?... Why?”

“Why what?”

“Oh, there’s loads of whys, but we’ll worry about why Arkadyevich wouldn’t just kill both of us later. Let’s start with why would you save my life?”

Xabi relaxes his arms, draws a deep breath and stares straight through Steven.

“You make me want to be a better man,” he says, with absolutely zero effort put into hiding the amusement-filled vacuum behind his line delivery.

Steven climbs off of him twisting his face in a grimace of disgust, which makes something inside Xabi smart as if he’d been slapped.

“I could say it’s because I’m dying to suck your dick, but that would hardly be appropriate, would it?... A man died,” Xabi adds, his earlier exasperation somewhat muted. “I never expected you to be dragged into this. Stealing diamonds from people who are too stupid to appreciate them and too rich to miss them is one thing, but I never hurt anybody, that was not part of the game. No one was supposed to die… I couldn’t… You’re not dying because of me if I can help it.”

Steven glances down towards Xabi, slightly distracted by the flush creeping onto the skin of his wrists where his belt is coiled tight.

“Didi’s not dead,” he says after a short deliberation, like releasing Xabi at least from the metaphorical constraint of remorse pains him. Xabi’s head snaps up from between his strained arms and his mouth opens, but Steven’s faster. “I’d love nothing more than to lock you inside this room and throw away the key, but you’d still follow me all the way to Paris anyway, so we’re going to go there together and get your diamond."

 _Van den Broek_ ’s diamond, Steven corrects himself, stifling a pang of guilt.

“This isn’t much fun as a solo act,” Xabi nods towards his bound hands and Steven relents because he doesn’t quite believe him.

“You start,” he says while he’s unfastening the knotted leather around the palest wrists he’s ever seen on a bloke.

“Are you sure… about Hamann?”

“Your English is better than mine, don’t act thick. So… _you_ start: where exactly in Paris do you have it stashed and how do we get it back?”

Xabi sits up stretching his legs and arching his back as if to check everything’s in working order. Those are not the parts of his body which are in discomfort at the moment at any rate.

“It’s in safe hands that won’t try to shoot us, not as long as I finish paying for its two copies. The man who made them is an incredibly gifted artist, but not the starving type…,” he says, rubbing at his stinging wrist. “One fake diamond of that quality costs a fortune, two of them meant I had to leave El Estanque as collateral until Arkadyevich paid me in full for the copy I supposedly stole for him. I got the cash last night, he wanted to make sure the auction went through first.”

The knots drawn by disbelief in Steven’s forehead are not the reaction Xabi’d expected to a scheme he’s quite proud of.

“You left a historical diamond with a diamond forger? And you just expect him to take some cash for it and give it back like… thieves’ honor, professional courtesy…?”

“You’ll understand once you meet him. Both El Estanque and the two of us are safe once we get there. But to answer an earlier why… I’m fairly sure Arkadyevich _will_ probably try to kill us both anyway. It’ll be fun,” Xabi says with a delightful grin. “But you need a gun.”

“Where’s yours?”

“In my hotel safe, next to the cash rendered for my services by Arkadyevich.”

“You didn’t think you’d need one breaking into the room of an angry man on a revenge mission?”

“I figured I have other methods of persuasion. I was right, wasn’t I?”

Steven glares.

“So you just give the diamond you’re so obsessed with back and... that’s it?”

“Your turn,” Xabi says, standing up. “How do you know your partner’s still alive?”

“Because on my way up here, I had a box of Amsterdam cookies waiting at the reception. There was a note in it with one scribbled word: Paris. I’d normally suspect it was more of your childish shite," he says quickly, stemming the tide of protest he anticipates when Xabi opens his mouth only to close it again, "but I’ve just spent half a day with the Amsterdam Police Detective Bureau trying explain what my credit card was doing in the wallet of Viktor Ellerbeck when his face was tragically shot to bits in a warehouse by the docks.”

Xabi’s raised eyebrow finally gets an answer:

“Didi knows some talented artists too, some who specialize in forged passports. "Viktor Ellerbeck" wasn’t the one he boarded the plane with on his way here, I guess he had it on him as a spare. It’s also the alias he once told me he’d use in an emergency, if something went wrong with a case and he needed to lay quiet for a while. Don't think that’s the only passport he had on him… He wanted me to know.”

Xabi blinks a couple of times, runs his hand through his beard avoiding his raw lip.

“Are you telling me he shot a man in the face to fake his own death?”

“He used to shoot people in various body parts for a living. That’s when he didn’t push them down elevator shafts or who the fuck knows… Men who steal diamonds out of boredom should probably not throw stones though. He’ll come up when he thinks the time is right. In the meantime… I guess I need a gun.”

Xabi flicks his phone out of his pocket and starts tapping on its mat screen.

“Call this number, tell them Javier sent you. You can take your pick of sidearm and they’ll deliver it to you here in a takeaway box. I love technology,” he says with an appreciative nod. “There’s a direct train to Paris leaving Amsterdam Centraal at 6:30. It's the fastest and most convenient way to get there with a Walther tucked into your pants. I’ll see you at Gare du Nord in Paris."

"What if I don't show up?" Steven asks.

Xabi straightens the ruffled lapels of his rain coat and stops in the doorway.

"I'll just have to have a double portion of pain de sucre," he says with a prolonged Iberian _r_ as if he's savoring the calorie bomb already. "Don't pig out on the train, there's this divine pâtisserie we might still catch open on rue Rambuteau.”

 

~

Paris is less wet than Amsterdam, but in the darkness past any of its pâtisseries' closing times it feels just as drab to Steven. When he sees Xabi waiting for him on the platform, leather case in hand, he doesn't ask if he traveled on the same train, both because Steven doesn't feel like admitting that not being seen together on the way is probably a smart move and because he knows Xabi's enjoying all this cloak and dagger bullshit too much already.

Steven pats the Glock 26 in his pocket (the Walther's for Nottinghamshire bumpkins, señor clueless) every two minutes during their silent taxi ride along the Seine and all the way up to the luxurious penthouse Xabi leads him to, just to ground himself in the seriousness of their predicament. 

"Try not to look so gloom," Xabi advises while Steven is chewing on his lower lip and trying to bore holes into the apartment door which stays defiantly closed even after the twentieth bell chime. "He doesn't like gloomy guests."

Twenty two proves to be their lucky number. Steven's not used to having to look up to find someone's face which only contributes to his general bewilderment when he's stared down by a mountain of a man dressed in silk pajama pants and not much else, not unless you count the blow torch he holds aloft in the hand that's not holding the door half-closed. It's accessorized with random tats spread all over his naked torso and a welding mask pulled halfway up his massive forehead, its elastic strap acting like a headband for the long dark tresses framing his head.

"X-man!" he thunders, a smile as big as everything else about him shifting his features from frightening to vaudeville in a fraction of a second. 

"Bonsoir! I hope it's not a bad time," Xabi says.

"It's never a bad time for friends of Zlatan. Who's the shar-pei?" asks Zlatan, mildly surprised at discovering Steven's existence.

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, yes, I dared to Zlatan.  
> #followingtheMastersphilosophy


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picture yourself on a train in a station,  
> With plasticine porters with looking glass ties.  
> Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For hou_dini, a reader I don't even deserve. 
> 
> PS: Zlatan once wanted to buy a hotel in Paris as soon as he rolled into town. As you do.

Steven’s head feels like it’s being split into two with a red-hot butter knife as soon as he opens his eyes. That is why he squeezes them shut before he has a chance to properly take in his cramped surroundings. He redirects every ounce of energy he’s not pouring into keeping himself in a state of semiconsciousness towards quiet intakes of breath he uses to anchor himself somewhere outside the throbbing ache emanating from the back of his skull.  
  
He’s been hogtied and thrown in the backseat of a moving vehicle. He doesn’t need his eyes, can figure as much by the smell of cheap upholstery ( _normal_ upholstery, he hasn’t had the Jaguar for long enough to not notice the difference anymore), the barely audible swoosh of wheels rolling over tarmac at a few good miles over the limit and the slow roiling motion that sends tiny dagger stabs into his cortex. The last thing he remembers before he woke up…  
  
His throat burns with unexpected violence when he realizes he has no idea where his partner in crime is or what happened after Xabi slowly raised his hands and smirked at the man aiming a gun straight at his chest.

~  
  
  
Before the gun pointed at Xabi and before the man with the grey temples and the nasty eyes, Steven’s memories are fairly clear and linear. He can still smell the Japanese incense wafting through Zlatan’s penthouse and not even a hard pistol butt to the head could erase Zlatan from Steven’s mind due to Zlatan’s fondness of referring to Zlatan in the third person to the point of wearing thin the very fabric of the name.    
  
Steven doubts the instant recollection is mutual.    
  
“Does your puppy bite?” Zlatan had asked with a nod to Xabi’s split lip shortly after the introductions were made and that seemed to be the end of his interest in Steven’s existence.  
  
Once he’d sat his guests on a pristine white leather couch in the middle of an otherwise empty living room and refused to acknowledge their polite no thank yous when offered his Samurai tea, the big man’s attention was back on Xabi exclusively. Steven catches him stealing quick glances at the suitcase Xabi rested at the foot of the couch, but he keeps sipping the delicate white tea in silence while Xabi handles the business chit chat.  
  
“Erm… actually…” Steven lifts his head in mid gulp because no sentence that has ever started with Erm… actually… has ever ended well.  
  
“There’s been a little… complication. Nothing serious, Zlatan is a man of his word,” Zlatan says with the same gravitas with which he moves and breathes and pours tea into finely handcrafted china cups.  
  
“Anything we can help with?” Xabi offers and Steven glances away from the tense lines that form around his mouth a second too late.  
  
“Domestic issues,” Zlatan says, a sudden bashfulness creeping over the vast landscape of his face. “Zlatan is King of his castle when it comes to the… erm… artistic side of the business, but it’s the Queen who runs this empire…”  
  
“Did Helena dump you again?” Xabi’s voice is cold with resignation mixed with a note of why didn’t I see this coming? wistfulness.    
  
“No, no… Nothing of the sort. My wife,” he finally turns to Steven as if he’s rediscovered a forgotten potted plant, “she is… how do you English say…” when his maw opens next, Zlatan unleashes a rawwwwwwr unlike Steven’s ever heard in the English language, but his point comes across clearly. “You put her and Zlatan together and you get… _phoarrrrrr_ ,” he gestures expansively in a manner suggesting a fateful meeting between potassium chlorate and a catalyst swimming in a sugar solution.  
  
Xabi takes a long, quiet breath and folds his hands across his knees, prompting Steven to wonder whether he’d even want to stop him from throttling Zlatan, should the need arise.  
  
“So… Helena walked off and took el Estanque with her.”  
  
It’s not a question, but Zlatan appears to consider an answer anyway before he surprises Steven by swerving in his direction.  
  
“Zlatan does not suffer many clients gladly. They are mostly boring assholes with no taste and tiny dicks they think they can make bigger with bling. But the X-Man here… I could feel the… connection right away,” Zlatan declares, drubbing his closed fist against the tats on his chest.  
  
Steven eyes Xabi, looking for signs of an impending eruption, but he continues to puncture a wall behind Zlatan with his expressionless stare. There is no telling if Zlatan knows or cares because he is in full performance mode. Steven would not even blink let alone be surprised to see him produce a skull he could stare at as he paces barefoot across the polished wood of the floor.  
  
“We are, how you say… cut from the same fabric. Money means nothing to us. What is a life lived on a big fucking pile of money if there is no fire… no… _la pasión_? That’s what drives the X-Man and I…  I could tell from the moment we met that he is drawn to pure, absolute beauty. Sure, he will try to hide it behind that beard, but he is a true artist at heart. Like Zlatan!”  
  
There’s no way of telling if Xabi’s overcome with emotion from briefly occupying the same pedestal as Zlatan because he refuses to grab the blow torch Zlatan abandoned on the floor and run rampage on their host (Steven has to swallow a gentle stab of disappointment), choosing to pick up his suitcase and bid Zlatan a frosty goodbye instead.  
  
  
~  
  
“I’m assuming there’s a plan. That you’ve got a plan,” Steven grouses, his eyes fixed on the dark spool of Parisian midnight projected outside the passenger side window. The online research Xabi seemed to have been engaged in all the way from Zlatan’s apartment to the quiet leafy boulevard where he’d left the car would seem to indicate they were not simply driving aimlessly through the glamorous side of town.  
  
The lack of response from Xabi is less unnerving to Steven than the fact he seems to be far more focused on the car radio than on the admittedly empty streets of the 8th arrondissement they’re leaving behind. The index of his left hand taps impatiently against the chrome of the dashboard, each split second of Euro dance adding another crease in Xabi’s frown until he finally hits on something from an era sufficiently remote to be to his liking. Steven can see his face relax under the stripes of neon lights filtered through the windshield.  
  
“Did you know I was supposed to visit Liverpool when I was a teenager? For The Beatles Museum.”  
  
Steven has a hard enough time imagining the man who’s navigating them out of central Paris as a spotty, bratty teen as it is, the thought of him strolling through Sefton Park one afternoon while Steven is engaged in one of his fierce after school kickabouts is almost too much to bear.  
  
“Mikel, my older brother… He was always Mr. Cool, he had one of the best album collections in the Basque Country by the time he was 15. I would rather die still before admitting this to him, of course, but I was in awe of the musical education I was getting,” Xabi says sotto voce and Steven can’t help the sympathetic nod he gives him because he has an older brother and the scars to prove it himself. “His bedroom was a shrine to John Lennon.”  
  
“Not much of an education that, everybody knows Paul was the best Beatle.”  
  
“Believe me, I have argued that many times. You know what is their stock answer: genius not meant to be relatable, blah, blah...” Xabi flicks his hand away from the gear shift in a dismissive gesture.  
  
Steven can suddenly picture 16-year old tourist Xabi walking through the park in his Sgt. Pepper t-shirt, obligatory 90s bowlcut hairstyle, map in hand... He can see him recoil from getting kicked in the head by one of Steven’s less perfectly delivered crosses. Which happened. Hardly ever. But… Maybe he’d go up to him to apologize, maybe Xabi wouldn’t speak a word of English but it wouldn’t matter anyway. It jolts something inside Steven, making him oblivious to the turn they’ve taken inside an underground parking garage.  
  
 _He wants you to ask. He’s just waiting for you to take an interest in why he never made it to the Beatles Museum. There’s probably a sob story of parental divorce and teenage heartbreak to go with it, who knows if he even has a brother…_  
  
Xabi’s profile remains inscrutable, it’s impossible to read on it if he’s waiting for anything more than a secluded parking spot angled perfectly away from the security cameras.  
  
“The Beatles’ first concert outside of the UK was held not far from here,” Xabi says as soon as the Audi comes to a stop in his chosen half-lit parking spot. “Boulevard des Capucins. This was just before Beatlemania began in America. They had young men chasing them in hysterics on the streets of Paris.”  
  
Steven follows Xabi out of the car.  
  
“How are we going to get the diamond back?” he asks, unmoved by the free walking tour he’s getting and aware that the more pressing question would perhaps be Where are we?  
  
“I suppose I’ll just have to steal it again.”  
  
Xabi lets Steven in on their location and the plan, as flimsy as it is, on the way up from the parking lot and Steven doesn’t even blink at the words “Zlatan’s hotel” because nobody who’s met the man would ever question why he’d own one.  
  
“This is unfortunate timing,” Xabi stops with his hand on the exit door handle, running the tip of his tongue over the stinging cut in his lower lip, “but maybe it is not a bad look for a ‘security expert’…  
  
“This is insane, 's what it is, even by your standards,” Steven pats the Glock holstered at his hip, its bulk shouldering the weight pressing on his chest for a moment.    
  
“I will be doing the talking, you just…,” Xabi stops just short of soothing Steven’s misgivings. “Hang on, I almost forgot,” he says and pops open the suitcase he’d pulled out from under the drivers’ seat.  
  
“Fucks sakes…”  
  
“Don’t squint, they’re not real.”  
  
“Is this necessary?”  
  
“Not really, I just wanted to see what you looked like in a Sexy Nerd outfit.”  
  
Steven squints even harder and wrinkles his nose under the unfamiliar weight of the horn-rimmed eyeglasses that make him feel somewhere closer to Alcoholic Divorced Actuary  on the Sexy Specs spectrum.  
  
He affects the right amount of cool disinterest when they step into the hotel lobby, taking in the surroundings, the angles of the security cameras and keeps behind Xabi who is wrapping the receptionist in a warm cocoon of accented French and shameless flirting. The young Frenchman is made of sterner stuff than most though because, despite not speaking a lick of French, Steven can sense Xabi's treading water by now.  
  
"Excuse me..."  
  
Xabi's shoulders stiffen as if he's been stabbed. Steven steps up without so much as a glance in his direction.  
  
"Romain, is it?... Romain," he pauses on the name shining on the young man's chest with a contemplative air despite the worst rolled r this side of the Dordogne, "I'm terribly sorry to drop in on you at this hour, I had my share of nightshifts when I was your age."  
  
The receptionist's eyebrows rise under the canopy of curls shading his forehead.  
  
"Unfortunately, Douglas, our boss... He has us doing these stress tests on the alarms and cameras and whatnot at these hours precisely so we can keep your guests' bother to a minimum. And because he's an arsehole."  
  
He can't even hear Xabi breathe anymore behind him, but as tempted as he is to turn around and possibly take a picture of his cyanotic face, Steven stays task focused through and through.  
  
"I've met Helena and her husband too, so I'm sure you can understand the type of pressure my partner and I are under... Your help would keep a lot of people sleeping soundly tonight, Romain, and we'd be out of your way as soon as we take a quick sweep through the executive suite. Or we could call Miss Seger to get her blessing... I think Thursdays are her cocktail nights out with the girls, no?..."  
  
Steven punctuates what everybody in the room understands to be the most delicate yet terrifying of threats by pushing his glasses up his nose. He could swear that strangled noise is Xabi whimpering somewhere behind him. Or maybe it's just the air conditioning under the droning muzzak.  
  
Young Romain is laying in a peaceful heap on the floor of the main elevator barely three minutes later. Steven hopes the concussion won't be too much of a bastard to deal with when he wakes up, but he steps over his curly head to catch up with Xabi.  
  
Helena's boudoir is a jungle of red roses clustered in vases arranged on every available surface, as if whatever Zlatan's done this time an entire royal garden had to be slaughtered for his sins. Steven takes a deep breath and starts rifling through an assortment of jewelry boxes and bejeweled containers scattered around her vanity mirror, all laden with bling but short of that clear blue sparkle he could now recognize at the bottom of the deepest well.

  
"That was quite a performance back there, Detective Gerrard," Xabi remarks casually on his way back from Helena's shoe closet.

He's holding a narrow black case that might contain a flute just as well as it might house a deadly Amazonian snake, Steven's pretty much ready for anything at this point. And yet, his fingers still turn to jelly (and ooops, there goes an expensive powder case smashed into the carpet) when Xabi flattens his palms on either side of the case and snaps it open to produce a sword stunted somewhere in its grown to a very sturdy dagger. Its exquisite silver flourishes fade, a washed out backdrop for the blue diamond mounted on its handle.

~

He knows, of course, that it's in nobody's best interest to call the police. He has no reason to disbelieve Xabi's reassurances that once they were out of the parking lot and nobody had found poor Romain yet, the case that's now resting on Steven's lap is theirs to keep; he even trusts that Helena had no interest in its contents other than to make Zlatan's penitence sting a bit more, and that as long as her husband didn't get paid for it, she couldn't care less who did. It doesn't stop Steven from fidgeting in all directions every five minutes, keeping an eye out for pursuers. All four of them out, he realizes as his eyewear slips down his nose once more.

They're long past the city proper and there's nobody out there, so Steven forces his body to slump into the leather seat of the Audi, the adrenaline waves breaking in retreat towards low tide in his bloodstream. Steven feels sluggish and warm and can't believe he's forgotten about the fake glasses. He tucks them into a jacket pocket with a small smile.

"I was hoping you'd keep them," Xabi says, quick to direct his eyes back on the road once more. "I work alone, of course, but... it would be a shame to waste such a natural tale..."

A bang of steel ripping into steel explodes at the back of their heads and the swerve of a ton of metal and burnt rubber on tarmac throws the world into pitch black.

 

~

 

"Mind if I change the channel?"

Robin van Persie gives Xabi a dismissive half nod from behind the wheel of the SUV and lets him go tune hunting at will. Steven can only see a flash of silver hair as the driver moves his head, but it's enough.

"I'm open to any suggestions, as long as it's not Dutch rap," Xabi insists breezily.

Steven swallows bile.

 

~

 

Steven's laying face down on the tarmac, he's crawling on all fours ignoring the bloodied indents the shattered remains of the Audi's windshield leave in his palms, he's breathing exhaust fumes and dust through his mouth. He makes it up on one knee from behind the smashed rear of the vehicle, reaches desperately for the Glock even though he already knows it's not there anymore because he sees Xabi raising his hands in surrender across from the wreck of his rental.

He can't see much else through the two am gloom and every single bone in his body's still rattling, but he still pushes himself to his feet, alerted by the sound of glass crunching under their attacker's black boots.

"Where's the diamond?" van Persie barks at Xabi.

The cold press of the gun barrel against Steven's aching temple is almost a relief.

"Where's the fucking diamond?!?"

"You're welcome to do my dirty work," Xabi says, arms still stretched out unconvincingly. "I was planning to dump Detective Gerrard in the Seine before sunrise myself, but it might be a two-people job. Now, can we talk like civilized people?"

 

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

Steven doesn't have any last witticisms to offer just as his life is supposed to flash before his eyes, like a comet tail in the wake of the bullet that's about to go through his brain. In fact, he doesn't have much of a conscious thought beyond dodging said bullet. Somehow. Hope may be daft, but that’s easy to say for people who’ve never been tied up and pushed to kneel in a damp, fetid river quay with nothing to do but wait for the lights to go off.

It doesn’t _feel_ like he’s about to become fish food though. The ache in his knees on the cold musty earth seems more bothersome than the press of a gun barrel against the nape of his neck. And it’s strange because Stevie’s brain is certainly All Systems Go in terms of adrenaline and desperation. It’s just that the rest of him hasn’t caught up with it yet.

“You can wait by the car,” Van Persie offers to Xabi and Steven’s this close to letting out a gargled snort.

“Don’t worry, I sleep very well at night. Besides, I should be here in case he… tries something.”

The last time Steven headbutted someone, he was a decade younger and about six cocktails with pink umbrellas in them drunker and all that had been at stake was Phil Collins’ honor. Which, granted, is right up there with loss of life and limb as far as Steven’s concerned, but…

The thought doesn’t even fully form in Steven’s mind by the time Xabi finishes his sentence. He squares his shoulders into a rigid battering ram and performs the most perfect reverse headbutt-to-the-crotch in the history of the discipline. He’s quite impressed with the howl of pain coming from Van Persie’s direction. Even though it does seem a bit two seconds too late, come to think of it... He can’t see the gun anymore, but if it landed on the ground instead of anywhere near his skull, Steven’s not about to complain. By the time he ignores the screech of his tired bones to pivot on his knees and rise to his feet, the gun goes off somewhere in between the contorted embrace Xabi and Van Persie are caught in and one of them slides to the ground under buckling knees.

“Xabi!” Steven squints, trying to make out the outline of Xabi’s shoulders as he stumbles over Van Persie just outside the dim halo of the car’s headlights.

“Christ… Left it a little late for your double crossing act in extra time there, eh?”

Xabi turns and takes two and a half steps towards Steven, Van Persie laying face first on the ground in his wake, a flash of silver sticking out from his back. Xabi falls to one knee by step three and Steven finally sees the trickle of blood starting to ruin Xabi’s lovely coat from the shoulder down.

“I’d be nicer to me if I were you,” Xabi hisses when Steven lowers himself to the ground next to him. “It appears between us we have the use of one hand,” he says, grappling on the ground towards Van Persie’s body with his good arm.

“And that one hand is mine…”

He stops when his fingers curl into the puddle of warm blood seeping from under the very likely expired Dutchman.

“I’m sure you’ll find some way to charge rent for its use,” Steven grumbles, but he’s instantly back on his feet and shoving Van Persie within Xabi’s reach before Xabi has to use any more energy on speaking rather than on drawing deep, painful breaths through his nose. 

He stops kicking Van Persie when Xabi’s bloodied hand can finally grab the silver dagger. He feels the cold press of el Estanque’s flawless surface into his palm. He grunts with every yank on the handle, tries not to think too much of how this reminds him of trying to fillet a particularly rubbery dorada, and passes out soon after half an inch of blade that can cut through Steven’s restraints is finally released.

~

Steven’s palm on his forehead.

Steven’s fingers brushing against his collarbone, just about the bullet hole.

Steven’s Disney eyelashes fleeting in and out Xabi’s field of vision at close range.

If it weren’t for the intense burn in his shoulder and the fever and the dizziness, Xabi thinks getting shot is something he could get used to eventually.

 

~

“Just pretend it’s a margarita.”

Xabi’s eyelids feel too sluggish still so he gulps the water then slumps back into the reclined car seat in the same semi-dusk that’s surrounded his every brief moment of lucid thought.

“Needs more salt,” he croaks, but runs his tongue along his chapped lips to draw out the cooling effect. He lets his eyes adjust in increments to the cloud-filtered light.

“Where’s…”

“…the diamond?”

“…Steven.”

“If he didn’t run into the kind of road works that kept me admiring the ringroad of Niort for three hours this morning, both Steven and your beloved rock should be getting off the Eurostar in London any minute now,” says Didi, taking a long, final sip out of his chrome slick coffee thermos.

“Where are we?”

“Bay of Biscay. French side, almost home sweet home.”

Xabi’s lost too much blood to process this much information and this much daylight all at once. His head rolls to one side towards the one shoulder that doesn’t feel like it’s slowly roasted from the inside.

“You look good for a dead man, Mr. Hamann.”

“You look like shite.”

“Can I talk to Steven?” Xabi ignores Didi’s blunt assessment of his current state because he has no doubt it’s entirely accurate.

“No.”

“Is he alright?”

“The man’s had to dispose of a dead body, drag your unconscious arse to a motel that would have you in your state… then had to make sure you wouldn’t die of sepsis. I think he deserves a break for a while, don’t you?”

“So you’re my babysitter?”

Didi looks out into the cloudy horizon. They’re parked for a coffee and painkillers break next to a fishing pier still rained out from the morning showers. It’s quiet, just the occasional jogger passing the nondescript Renault.

“I’m your… retirement consultant,” he says, reaching for the plastic containers stuffed in his trench pockets and hoping he remembered to keep the painkiller / antibiotic / sleeping pills cocktail dosage to non-lethal levels. He glances at Xabi’s reaction, an anemic barely-there smirk, and flips the key in the ignition willing to hedge his bets on French Diazepam.

“Congratulations, Mr. Alonso. You’re being retired.”

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amount of hits on some cracked out AU that many (myself included) had lost hope on ever being finished is _freaking_ me out. Is there some google bot in love with Xabier's beard reading this over and over and over again and recommending it to its google bot friends?... Don't get me wrong, I love storytelling and sharing it with others, so I'm grateful for each and every one of you, but... WHY does this one story have this disproportionate amount of readers???


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a tort de penser, je sais bien,  
> Aux lendemains.  
> A quoi bon se compliquer la vie  
> Puisqu'aujourd'hui...

The hotel door clicks open with the quaint metallic scratch of an actual key fitting in its lock. You could call it a hotel at a stretch, but it’s more of a bed and breakfast run by a diminutive Guatemalan woman sporting a perma scowl, on the third floor above the only noisy street in town. The sheets are clean though and there are six channels on the tiny TV in the corner so Xabi can’t complain much.

“You could have warned me your Sociedad club de fútbol were shit. Cost me 100 Euros just now… Who loses to Espanyol, for fuck’s sakes? … At home?!? That’s Barcelona’s poor, alkie cousin coming over to crash on your sofa after another sting in rehab. You don’t just hand them your fucking wallet!”

Xabi arches his back against the creaky headboard of his bed and stretches his good arm in an attempt to align himself with some passing geostationary orbit. It’s as far as it would go without disturbing the ailing shoulder hanging in its sling across his I heart Hondarribia t-shirt. The TV is old enough to have a green volume band across the screen, but the remote is obviously even older and Xabi gives up his struggle with the half-sunken + arrow.  
  
Didi locks the door behind him and slides the key back into his pocket, balancing a plate covered with a plastic bag in his other hand. Hope starts to bloom inside Xabi’s chest, even though the smells creeping up from the street, along with drunk, despondent chants of Erreeee-a-laaaa and the swarm of a hundred voices gossiping all at once, are too much on the acidic side to make him hungry. Still, he’d rather not go through a third consecutive pizza night.  
  
The bed across from his protests with a by now familiar groan once Didi settles in and uncovers his offering.  
  
“Dinner is served!”  
  
It beats frozen dough pizza every day, but Xabi still arches an eyebrow at the identical two dozen octopus slices arranged on chunks of boiled potato sprinkled with sweet pepper powder and sea salt.  
  
“Let me guess, these were on the house,” Xabi says, inhaling his first serving as his eyes roll in the back of his head. He recovers in a hurry, ready to shovel more into his mouth.  
  
“They’re all drinking my stake money down there right now, don’t think they’ll miss them,” Didi sets the plate on the small nightstand squeezed between their beds. “Not like they’re a rare perfect diamond or anything,” he says with a casual glance at the Basque language Match of the Day raking through the ashes of the Anoeta disaster on screen.  
  
Xabi grins midway through clearing the plate.  
  
“You know, if you didn’t insist on this Rapunzel scenario, I could take you to a place that’s not a tourist shithole. Best grilled doradas in Gipuzkoa are just around the corner if you know where to look,” he says, licking octopus juices off his thumb.  
  
“Not like you couldn’t pick that lock with one arm tied… well, around your neck… then sneak out of this fine establishment and disappear while I’m brushing my teeth.”  
  
“I suppose I could.”  
  
“But you wouldn’t do that.”  
  
“No.”  
  
Well. It’s not like Didi has been all that forthcoming with information either. In fact, in all the time he’s spent watching Xabi gradually wake up from his heavily medicated daze, he’s gone no further than Amsterdam with his story and even then there hadn’t been much to it. He’d gotten a little derailed trying to explain to Xabi how he’d come to be friends with their mutual acquaintance in Amsterdam - Dirk Kuyt, a man who believed in Zlatan’s artistry and charged a moderately obscene agent’s fee for his faith. But there wasn’t much to it otherwise. Van Persie had sent a less fortunate associate to catch Didi…  
  
“The dumbfuck actually thought Steven was working with you and I was a decoy, can you believe it?”  
  
… said associate had ended up with some radical and unscheduled maxillofacial rearrangement and Stevie was in Paris and not picking up his damn phone by the time Didi had reached a number that was safe to use. Xabi hadn’t asked a single question about anything that’s not recent history though and it bugs Didi to no end, it really does.  
  
“I’m not Michael Owen,” Xabi says with a casual glance back to the TV screen, like he hasn’t even noticed the vein starting to twitch in Didi’s temple. The man’s spent most of adult life finessing his trigger reflex, so it’s doubly satisfying. “I know he has very good reasons to mistrust people. To mistrust _me_ …”  
  
“Even worse for you, _I_ have good reasons to mistrust you.”  
  
“I don’t want the diamond.”  
  
“Oh, you don’t?”  
  
“If I wanted the diamond, I had about half a dozen opportunities to grab it and dump Steven in the Seine that night. And he knows that…”  
  
“Steven is a good man. I’m talking about the kind of inborn decency the likes of you and me have never deluded ourselves about possessing,” Didi says, letting his palms fall on top of his knees before he gets up. He heads for the bathroom, stops, turns with a new sort of determination infusing his rumpled weariness. “So _do not_ fuck with him if you don’t intend to cuddle him in the morning.”  
  
“Or else…?  
  
“Or else I’ll shoot your dick off.”  
  
There’s weight behind that promise, a boulder hanging its bulk somewhere past its humorous edge, confirming Xabi’s suspicion that this isn’t a man given to making empty threats.  
  
“Fair enough,” he says and Didi holds his gaze for an extra second before they’re both satisfied with the parts of themselves they recognize in each other.  
  
“Get some sleep, we’re going on a little field trip early tomorrow.”  
  
~  
  
Xabi can see him from the corner of his eye; it’s just a smudge of Steven’s form leaning against the arched doorway of the library, but he’s there alright. He turns away towards the book shelf, eyes trained on the fourteenth century bestiary he’s been leafing through for the last twenty minutes. It’s heavy and every time he struggles out of the sling holding up his left arm he gets a sharp reminder of why it’s a terrible idea to be ambidextrous at the moment.    
  
“I see you’ve made yourself at home in the convent. Could do with a beard trimmer though…”  
  
And just like that, Steven is half a step behind him. Xabi blames the pinpricks dancing up and down his spine on the Baroque draft haunting the convent library.  
  
“Sister Magdalena has promised to let me borrow hers,” he says, rubbing his fingers ever so slowly through the thicket of his overgrown beard.  
  
Steven shoves his hands deep in his jeans pockets.  
  
Xabi places the book back on its ancient shelf, turns back to Steven, makes no effort to hide that he appreciates his grey vneck sweater ensemble and cradles his injured arm closer in its sling.  
  
“How’s the shoulder?” Steven asks.  
  
“Spectacular. A few weeks of monastic peace and quiet and I’ll be ready to be consecrated as a full time nun. Was it you who picked my retirement home or did you leave it to Mr. Hamann?” Xabi starts pacing along the neat rows of bookshelves, following the beams of sunshine mingling with florid sculpted archways on the library’s ceiling.  
  
“Sounds like you two’ve hit it off,” Steven grins and keeps up with Xabi on his way to the window that’s flanked on the outside by deep purple clematis sagging under the weight of their bloom.  
  
“Oh he’s very good at offering… consultancy services, but I was hoping he would throw in a cell phone when he dropped me off here. I may not have much of a legal leg to stand on otherwise, but technically I was held against my will...”  
  
Xabi hops onto the stone niche of the window sill, keeping his balance despite his wounded arm and arching his back against the invading warmth of the midday sun.    
  
“He mentioned something about you being high-maintenance even while three quarter unconscious…,” Steven says as if he hadn’t hoped for rather than just expected a touch of petulance. “I thought you’d be proud of me for figuring out your final destination.”  
  
“It was supposed to be the final destination of El Estanque, I wasn’t planning to get _myself_ to a nunnery,” Xabi grumbles, squinting against the overwhelming spring light and leaning on his good arm to whisper to Steven, looking up at him with big, frightened eyes. “This place is full of _virgins_ , Steven! I’m scared…”  
  
“No wi-fi either.”  
  
“I know you need me to ask, but you could just tell me how you figured it out, you know…”  
  
“I don’t _need_ you to…” Oh, no, he’s not falling for that one. “I googled your brother,” Steven says, a bit distracted by the way the sunshine brings out flecks of auburn in Xabi’s hair. “Turns out you actually do have a brother and his name is Mikel afterall, so I flew in and paid him a visit.”  
  
Xabi squints harder but lets it go because he’d rather not argue over whether he deserves the skepticism or not.  
  
“Had a nice time with Professor Alonso?”  
  
“There was no talking him out of that whole John as the greatest Beatle nonsense, but otherwise… he’s obviously the smarter, better looking brother,” Steven says all matter of fact and chewed up lower lip. “Better beard too…”  
  
He knows, too late, that he’s pushed it just a bit too far there and has to restrain himself from wincing under Xabi’s merciless grin.  
  
“Did Mikel take out the album with the baby pictures for you?”  
  
“Oh, he had an even more interesting picture to paint himself. According to him, you don’t show up back home for years and years… at least half a decade… and then about a year and a half ago you started to pester him about the subject of his undergraduate thesis: Napoleon’s brother and his retreat from Spain via the Basque Country. You said it was for inspiration for an ad campaign… Mikel’s still laughing his arse off at that, by the way…” Xabi nods with a smile, admitting defeat. “He pointed you to a few of the more… unconventional books on the subject. Some of the authors seemed convinced that old Joseph traded Crown jewels in exchange for safe passage along the way and buried the rest close enough to the French border hoping to send his army to dig them up one day. One professor even claimed El Estanque was in this very convent all along… “  
  
Xabi is busy studying the medieval paving stones under their feet- gray, massive, their corners tamed by centuries and footsteps, and Steven takes advantage of his apparent daydreaming to shuffle onto the other end of their improvised stone bench.  
  
“So… I have this crazy theory about why you went through all that trouble to camouflage the diamond into a dagger. I think you were planning all along to make a speculative and turns out false academic theory work for you by bringing El Estanque to the convent and keeping it hidden… Sanctuary.”  
  
Xabi considers it for a while then raises a cynical eyebrow.  
  
“That would make me an honest thief.”  
  
“That’s exactly what Van den Broek said.”  
  
“You gave it back to him,” Xabi turns to look at Steven with a quiet smile. He’d never intended it as a question anyway. “I can see it now… You going down on one knee, the old man touching your shoulder: _Rise, Sir Gerrard_ …”  
  
Steven shrugs.  
  
“He bought it; he’s its rightful owner so… I did my job.” Steven decides to savor these fifteen seconds. Then… “He was impressed with you though…”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
It somehow doesn’t sound like much of a consolation.  
  
“Van den Broek had a good laugh knowing he wasn’t the only one paying for one of Zlatan’s very special glass trinkets. Had tears in his eyes and everything… Apparently Arkadyevich wasn’t just using it for a vendetta on us; he’s courting fiancée number three, old enough to be his granddaughter, naturally… She’d never be able to wear it in public, for obvious reasons, but she’s getting a nicely polished blob of blue glass for her troubles, as an engagement gift. Unlike Van den Broek, they’ll never be able to tell the difference. So… the old man would like to meet you. Not in London, obviously, it’s probably best if you stay away for a while, but he’s got a whole fleet of private jets…”  
  
“He… _Meet_ me?… Are you sure you got the right verb?"”  
  
“He’ll hide the silverware first, but… yeah. He likes what he’s heard about you,” Steven says, increasingly unable to contain his fidgeting. You can thank Zlatan, by the way. I borrowed his whole tormented artist crap about you and I… um… I asked for a bonus in exchange for El Estanque,” Steven adds, realizing that the look on Xabi’s face right now would also qualify as one. “A little guarantee that neither of us will keel over with a case of polonium poisoning... or have a flower pot dropped on our heads any time soon, that kind of thing.”  
  
“I had a brief but fairly peaceful criminal career before I met you, you know,” Xabi says with a quick bite to the freshly closed cut on his lip, “I almost broke a sweat a couple of times, but it was all bloodless. Since you came along, I’ve been shoved, punched, shot at…”  
  
“You poor lamb!”  
  
“…and forcibly babysat by a cranky Bavarian…”  
  
“You don’t have to take Van den Broek’s protection if it’s not good enough for you,” Steven starts, the lines in his forehead starting to curve in cantankerous little arches, “but you’d better have some free miles on your card because…”  
  
Xabi’s wounded lower lip is warmer and saltier than the rest of his mouth and his thick beard rasps hot prickly trails against Steven’s chin.  
  
“… I think I can live with it,” Xabi says when they eventually break apart and he opens his eyes.  
  
There’s suddenly too much blood under Steven’s skin and his head simply won’t move, so he blurts out in one long breath over Xabi’s mouth:  
  
“He wants to donate El Estanque to the Santa Clara convent and he’s hired Gerrard Investigations to set up a decent security system around the place before the historians and fetishists and gawkers with cameras start pouring in. He’d also like you on board as an um… security expert.” He stops for an inhale then quickly drops a glance to Xabi’s hand splayed on the inside of his thigh.  
  
“This is a job interview.”  
  
“Ah.”  
  
Also, Steven is expecting a bolt of lightning or a dour-faced elderly Benedictine Sister armed with a wooden ruler to strike him down any time now, but he’s never admitting to that so...  
  
“Finnan would go absolutely mental if he knew,” Steven chuckles absently, watching Xabi’s hand retreat with a demure sort of resignation. The library remains blissfully quiet.  
  
“Isn’t your reformed criminal consultant quota already filled with Mr. Hamann?”  
  
“He’s the one who’s retiring, actually. Willingly,” Steven adds. “He found love in Amsterdam while hiding from Van Persie, believe it or not.”  
  
“Did he?” Xabi almost startles, or maybe he’s just moving even closer to Steven on the window sill, he can’t quite tell.  
  
“You’re lucky he didn’t feel the need to overshare to you too,” Steven makes a face and rattles on. “Amazingly wise lady named Leandra, owns her own um… homeopathic store somewhere in Amsterdam Noord, which Didi broke into to hide, and one thing led to another. Specializes in healing with magnetic stones… Dunno, I sort of tuned out at “homeopathic”, but he’s never been less of a grumpy bastard in all the time I’ve known him, so who knows. He’ll probably be back in three weeks, but… The job’s yours. If you’re interested…”  
  
“This is very generous of your client,” Xabi’s voice is dripping with non-commitment, but he keeps his eyes level with Steven’s and it doesn’t look like he has any intention of looking at anything else for a while.  
  
“Yeah, well… There might be some zinc mine concession he’d love to discuss with the local Basque government, I’m not too clear on the details, but… To be honest, I think he mostly wants to imagine Arkadyevich opening the paper one morning and seeing him hand over El Estanque to a bunch of nuns, surrounded by people who know it’s the real deal. It’s no longer my problem at that point, either way.”  
  
“You blackmailed one of the world’s richest men then gave him a sale pitch for me?” Xabi backtracks, stuck about five minutes prior into the conversation.  
  
Steven doesn’t say anything but looks back to where Xabi’s hand had been just a short while ago.  
  
“I… think I need to talk to your legal expert. Mr. Finnan, is it?” Xabi asks, following Steven’s gaze and thus missing the lovely shade of egg carton gray Steven’s face starts to acquire. “I’d need to know what the agency’s policy on sleeping with the boss is…”  
  
…

  
“We’re in a convent, for fuck’s sakes!”

“So stop kissing me…”  
  
~

“Don’t worry about Finnan,” Steven says when he can finally bring himself to stop kissing him, some six hours later in a real hotel in an even smaller town back on the coast. “I don’t think I’m going back to the London office after this assignment is done. I never made sense in the city without a police badge… And it’s not like Agger needs me to run the place anyway.”

“OK…” Xabi chuckles because this would be towards the bottom of his Pillowtalk Topics list. He settles back into the one position where he can keep his mouth close to Steven’s pulse point without risking a shot of mind-numbing pain in his shoulder.

“Got any destination in mind?”    

“Actually…”  
  


~

The wind slams leftover droplets of the morning’s fourth shower in ninety minutes across Xabi’s face as he’s crossing the rain-soaked street with a foreign newspaper rolled up under his arm. He shakes the sea-scented rain drops from his hair onto his trenchcoat and sits down at what he’s starting to think of as his table in a tiny café across from The Beatles Museum. The waitress has seen him three times already this week but she’s just as flustered as on his first day in town, back when Xabi still needed a map of the museum.  
He flashes her a not *too* cruel smile and savors his black coffee while smoothing wet creases out of page 5 of the Sunday paper. He skips the expert opinions and the general gushing over having a crown jewel returned to the nation after so many centuries and only casts the briefest of looks towards the sparkly HD portrait of El Estanque under the exalted headline. He finally finds a much smaller shot of Santa Clara’s rich benefactor boarding his private jet back to England alongside a tall man with messy hair and a broad back.

The picture is black and white, but Xabi has all the blue he needs imprinted in his memory every time he closes his eyes.

  
He plans to work from their bedroom home-office for the rest of the week.  
  
  


FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I expected to hate this a lot more than I do given how many re-writes I've gone through, but... it's survived two broken laptops, one slight anxiety attack, multiple trips across Europe and a malfunctioning wi-fi adapter so.... I guess we've bonded by now. 
> 
> Finishing guilt is a hell of a thing!

**Author's Note:**

> First, I have absolutely no sane justification for this; Anaile20GH saw the latest Don Draper performance and basically ordered me to write this. So just enjoy [the visuals](http://24.media.tumblr.com/48a8601d64b54b2214ab61361a1ea8ca/tumblr_mupty5NLtz1qddnsso8_250.gif) and the interior ["what you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons"](http://25.media.tumblr.com/2eb1f89176c24d51c7fa39e560829888/tumblr_mupty5NLtz1qddnsso3_250.gif) monologue that inspired this performance.
> 
> Second, I'm (mostly) done with the expositioning, stuff will eventually happen if my insomnia doesn't let up soon.


End file.
